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Abstract
The only specific treatments of allergy are long and exacting desensitization by subcutaneous injections of the allergens. While oral administration of allergens could greatly facilitate these treatments, effective delivery systems are needed to prevent allergen degradation in the gastrointestinal tract and to enable their uptake by Peyer's patches. The potential for bee-venom phospholipase A2 (PLA2) to be used in such oral immunotherapy was tested. For this purpose, PLA2 potential alterations were analysed when encapsulated into poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) microspheres by double emulsion solvent evaporation. It was shown that microencapsulation had only limited effects on the integrity of the entrapped PLA2, which retained its fully specific murine IgE binding capacity. Thus, PLA2 loaded microspheres could represent a potential delivery system for bee venom allergy-specific oral immunotherapy.