Structure of allergens and structure based epitope predictions.

ABSTRACT: The structure determination of major allergens is a prerequisite for analyzing surface exposed areas of the allergen and for mapping conformational epitopes. These may be determined by experimental methods including crystallographic and NMR-based approaches or predicted by computational methods. In this review we summarize the existing structural information on allergens and their classification in protein fold families. The currently available allergen-antibody complexes are described and the experimentally obtained epitopes compared. Furthermore we discuss established methods for linear and conformational epitope mapping, putting special emphasis on a recently developed approach, which uses the structural similarity of proteins in combination with the experimental cross-reactivity data f

SUBMITTER: Dall'antonia F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3969231 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature