1 Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, CSIR - Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysuru, Karnataka, India
2 Department of Radiation Oncology, The Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX 77030, U.S.A.
3 Allergy Asthma Associates, K. M. Puram, Mysuru, Karnataka, India
Publication History:
Published online: 10 January 2018
Accepted: 17 July 2017
Received: 13 May 2017
The association between grass pollen sensitization and food allergy to tomato is of great interest. We report here, the first such study in Indian population. We investigated 246 allergic rhinitis / asthma patients by diagnostic case history and skin prick test (SPT); grass pollen mix, tomato extract and purified tomato profilin were used for SPT. Tomato profilin was purified by affinity chromatography, and analyzed by HPLC (95% purity) and SDS-PAGE (14 kDa). We observed that 38% of the patients had sensitization to both grass pollen and tomato fruit, of which 92% were sensitized to tomato profilin. Among patients with a history of food allergy to tomato fruit, the association was more pronounced (66%). Tomato profilin appears to be an important cross-sensitizing panallergen in respiratory allergic patients in the Indian subcontinent.