Fish allergens at a glance: variable allergenicity of parvalbumins, the major fish allergens

Front. Immunol., 22 April 2014 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2014.00179

MINI REVIEW ARTICLE

Annette Kuehn¹*, Ines Swoboda², Karthik Arumugam¹, Christiane Hilger¹ and François Hentges^1,3

• 1Laboratory of Immunogenetics and Allergology, Public Research Centre for Health (CRP-Santé), Luxembourg, Luxembourg
• 2Molecular Biotechnology Section, University of Applied Sciences, Vienna, Austria
• 3Unit of Immunology and Allergology, Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Fish is a common trigger of severe, food-allergic reactions. Only a limited number of proteins induce specific IgE-mediated immune reactions. The major fish allergens are the parvalbumins. They are members of the calcium-binding EF-hand protein family characterized by a conserved protein structure. They represent highly cross-reactive allergens for patients with specific IgE to conserved epitopes. These patients might experience clinical reactions with various fish species. On the other hand, some individuals have IgE antibodies directed against unique, species-specific parvalbumin epitopes, and these patients show clinical symptoms only with certain fish species. Furthermore, different parvalbumin isoforms and isoallergens are present in the same fish and might display variable allergenicity. This was shown for salmon homologs, where only a single parvalbumin (beta-1) isoform was identified as allergen in specific patients. In addition to the parvalbumins, several other fish proteins, enolases, aldolases, and fish gelatin, seem to be important allergens. New clinical and molecular insights advanced the knowledge and understanding of fish allergy in the last years. These findings were useful for the advancement of the IgE-based diagnosis and also for the management of fish allergies consisting of advice and treatment of fish-allergic patients.

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Keywords: allergenicity, fish allergy, fish gelatin, food allergy, isoallergens, isoforms, monosensitivity, parvalbumin

Citation: Kuehn A, Swoboda I, Arumugam K, Hilger C and Hentges F (2014) Fish allergens at a glance: variable allergenicity of parvalbumins, the major fish allergens. Front. Immunol. 5:179. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2014.00179

Received: 19 December 2013; Paper pending published: 13 February 2014;
Accepted: 05 April 2014; Published online: 22 April 2014.

Edited by:

Kendall A. Smith, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, USA

Reviewed by:

Richard E. Goodman, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Habib Chabane, Centre Hospitalier Delafontaine, France

Copyright: © 2014 Kuehn, Swoboda, Arumugam, Hilger and Hentges. 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: Annette Kuehn, Laboratory of Immunogenetics and Allergology, Public Research Centre for Health (CRP-Santé), 84 Val Fleuri, Luxembourg L-1526, Luxembourg e-mail: annette.kuehn@crp-sante.lu