Olivia Y. Baessler, Julia Weiss, Stefanie Wienkoop, Karola Lehmann, Christian Scheler, Sabine Doelle, Dietmar Schwarz, Philipp Franken, Eckhard George, Margitta Worm, Wolfram Weckwerth
- Tomato fruit and seed allergens were detected by IgE-immunoblotting using sera from 18 adult tomato-sensitized patients selected based on a positive history skin prick test (SPT) and specific Immunglobulin (Ig) E-levels. Isolated tomato seed total protein showed high SPT activity comparable or even higher than tomato fruit protein. For the molecular characterization of tomato seed allergens, a multidimensional protein fractionation strategy and LC-MS/MS was used. Two legumin- and vicilin-proteins were purified and showed strong IgE-reactivity in immunoblots. Individual patient sera exhibited varying IgE-sensitivity against the purified proteins. In silico structural modeling indicates high homology between epitopes of known walnut allergens and the detected IgE-crossreactive tomato proteins.
