Allergy to uncommon pets: new allergies but the same allergens

Front. Immunol., 30 December 2013 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2013.00492

Araceli Díaz-Perales^1†, David González-de-Olano^2†,Marina Pérez-Gordo^3† and Carlos Pastor-Vargas⁴*^†

• ¹Center for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (UPM-INIA), Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain
• ²Allergy Unit, Hospital Universitario Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain
• ³Institute of Molecular Applied Medicine (IMMA), CEU San Pablo School of Medicine, Madrid, Spain
• ⁴Department of Immunology, IIS-Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Madrid, Spain

The prevalence of exotic pet allergies has been increasing over the last decade. Years ago, the main allergy-causing domestic animals were dogs and cats, although nowadays there is an increasing number of allergic diseases related to insects, rodents, amphibians, fish, and birds, among others. The current socio-economic situation, in which more and more people have to live in small apartments, might be related to this tendency. The main allergic symptoms related to exotic pets are the same as those described for dog and cat allergy: respiratory symptoms. Animal allergens are therefore, important sensitizing agents and an important risk factor for asthma. There are three main protein families implicated in these allergies, which are the lipocalin superfamily, serum albumin family, and secretoglobin superfamily. Detailed knowledge of the characteristics of allergens is crucial to improvement treatment of uncommon-pet allergies.

Article Info

Abstract

Full Text

PDF

Export Citation

XML

View Article Impact

Keywords: allergens, albumins, lipocalins, pet allergy, uncommon pet

Citation: Díaz-Perales A, González-de-Olano D, Pérez-Gordo M and Pastor-Vargas C (2013) Allergy to uncommon pets: new allergies but the same allergens. Front. Immunol.4:492. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2013.00492

Received: 15 October 2013; Accepted: 16 December 2013;
Published online: 30 December 2013.

Edited by:

Annette Kuehn, Centre de Recherche Public de la Santé, Luxembourg

Reviewed by:

Beatrice Jahn-Schmid, Medical University of Vienna, Austria
Christiane Hilger, Centre de Recherche Public de la Santé, Luxembourg

Copyright: © 2013 Díaz-Perales, González-de-Olano, Pérez-Gordo and Pastor-Vargas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Carlos Pastor-Vargas, Department of Immunology, Hospital Fundación Jiménez Díaz, IIS-Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Avda. Reyes Católicos 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain e-mail: cpastor@fjd.es

^†Araceli Díaz-Perales, David González-de-Olano, Marina Pérez-Gordo and Carlos Pastor-Vargas have contributed equally to this work.