Project description:It is known that, in addition to known allergens, other proteins in pollen can aid the development of an immune response in allergenic individuals. The contribution of the “unknown” protein allergens becomes especially prominent in phylogenetically related species where, despite of high homology of the lead allergens, the degree of allergenic potential can greatly vary. The aim of this study was to identify other potentially allergenic proteins in pollen of three common and very related allergenic tree species: birch (Betula pendula), hazel (Corylus avellana) and alder (Alnus glutinosa). For that purpose, we carried out a comprehensive, comparative proteomic screening of the pollen from the three species. In order to maximize protein recovery and coverage, different protein extraction and isolation strategies during sample preparation were employed. As a result, we report 2500 - 3000 identified proteins per each of the pollen species. Identified proteins were further used for a number of annotation steps, providing insight into differential distribution of peptidases, peptidase inhibitors and other potential allergenic proteins across the three species. Moreover, we carried out functional enrichment analysis that, interestingly, corroborated high species similarity in spite of their relatively distinct protein profiles. We provide to our knowledge first insight into proteomes of three very important allergenic pollen types, which is particularly vital for pollen of hazel and alder where not even transcriptomics data is available. Datasets provided in this study can be readily used as protein databases, and as such serve as an excellent starting point for further allergenic studies.
Project description:Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Treg) play a central role for tolerance against self and innocuous environmental antigens. However, the role of antigen-specificity for Treg-mediated tolerance is only incompletely understood. Here we show by direct ex vivo characterization of human CD4+ T cells, that the response against innocuous airborne antigens, such as plant pollen or fungal spores, is dominated by memory-like antigen-specific Treg. Surprisingly, breakdown of tolerance in atopic donors was not accompanied by a quantitatively or qualitatively altered Treg response, but instead correlated with a striking dichotomy of Treg versus Th2 target specificity. Allergenic proteins, are selectively targeted by Th2 cells, but not Treg. Thus human Treg specific for airborne antigens maintain tolerance at mucosal sites and the failure to generate specific Treg against a subgroup of antigens provides a window of opportunity for allergy development. PBMCs from sex and age matched birch pollen allergic patients and healthy controls, were stimulated (7h) with airborne fungal (A. fumigatus) or birch pollen antigen (birch) and sorted into antigen specific conventional and regulatory T cells according to their expression of CD154+ and CD137+ on CD4+ T cells, respectively. Number of samples per group in parentheses: Healthy controls stimulated with A. fumigatus (n=5), allergic patients stimulated with A. fumigatus (n=6), healthy controls stimulated with birch (n=6), allergic patients stimulated with birch (n=4).
Project description:Human BEAS-2B were exposed to whole birch pollen using a Pollen Sedimentation Chamber. The chamber was designed to be able to dose cells to dry whole pollen. The goal was to understand the reaction of human epithelial cells to a human real life pollen exposure.
Project description:We have used transgenic ethylene-insensitive birches (Betula pendula), which express the Arabidopsis ethylene receptor gene ETR1 carrying the dominant mutation etr1-1, to investigate the role of ethylene in short day (SD) -induced responses in the shoot apical meristem in birch. Wild-type birch (clone V5834) and two ethylene-insensitive lines in this background (BPetr1-1-35 and BPetr1-1-86; see Plant Physiol 132: 185-195) were exposed to SD. After 12, 16 and 20 days under SD, apices of branches of three trees were pooled before RNA extraction from each sample. To study the ethylene-dependent SD-transcriptome in birch apices, the RNA extracts of lines BPetr1-1-35 and BPetr1-1-86 were separately compared with the reference, wild-type V5834, at the three time points (12SD, 16SD, 20SD) resulting in altogether six microarray hybridizations.
Project description:The data contained in this Experiment come from 10X Chromium Genomics WGS of HepG2 cell line For data usage terms and conditions, please refer to http://www.genome.gov/27528022 and http://www.genome.gov/Pages/Research/ENCODE/ENCODE_Data_Use_Policy_for_External_Users_03-07-14.pdf