Allergens are transported through the respiratory epithelium

Abstract

We used a top-down approach with a wide repertoire of wet laboratory and in silico techniques for analyzing the pathogenesis of early events within the type I allergic reactions. We could show a caveolar-dependent transport of the birch pollen allergen through the respiratory epithelium of allergic patients but not of their healthy controls. The application of discovery-driven methodologies can provide new hypotheses worth further analyses of complex multifactorial diseases such as type I allergy.

Keywords::

• allergy
• caveolae
• epithelium
• pollen allergen

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The original work was supported in part by Research Grants from the Academy of Finland, the Sigrid Juselius Foundation and the Helsinki University Central Hospital Research Funds, Helsinki, Finland. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.