Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

Background: Aspergillus species has crucial role in respiratory allergy. This study was aimed to evaluate the pattern of IgE-mediated immune response to common aspergillus species including Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus flavous, Aspergillus niger in type I aspergillus-hypersensitive patients’ sera.

Methods: The prepared protein extract of Aspergillus species were dialyzed and the protein concentrations were measured by Bradford method. The protein patterns were checked by SDS-PAGE. The allergic patients and controls were selected based on their clinical history and skin prick test (SPT) results. The cross-reactivity of allergens were determined by ELISA and Western-blotting using allergic patients’ and controls’ sera.

Results: SDS-PAGE showed that the molecular weight of most of aspergillus proteins are between 11-100 kDa with typical bands between 46-100 kDa. ELISA showed that there is a significant difference between the serum-immunoreactivity of patients and negative controls for each of studied species. However, we did not find significant difference between the immunoreactivity of the patients with the studied fungal species. Western-blotting also detected various typical IgE-reactive proteins for each of aspergillus species.

Conclusion: The IgE-reactive pattern of aspergillus species shows a slight difference. The variation of the immunoreactivity of the aspergillus species could be due to the genetic variations, difference in the environmental predisposition with saprophyte molds or non-equal allergenic potency of the extracts.

al IgE-reactive proteins for each of aspergillus species.

Conclusion: The IgE-reactive pattern of aspergillus species shows a slight difference. The variation of the immunoreactivity of the aspergillus species could be due to the genetic variations, difference in the environmental predisposition with saprophyte molds or non-equal allergenic potency of the extracts.