Examination of microheterogeneity in grass pollen allergens

The separation of timothy pollen extract by two-dimensional immunoblotting revealed microheterogeneity of the major allergens PhI p I and PhI p V. There was not only a diversity in size, 38 and 32 kDa for PhI p V and 37, 35, and 33 kDa for PhI p I, but also a separation into proteins of identical sizes but different pIs. Since former studies on the protein structure by amino acid analysis and N-terminal microsequencing did not reveal any differences, we examined other possibilities that might cause microheterogeneity. In allergens belonging to the PhI p I group, the variability in pI can be due to the carbohydrate structure and to the fact that charges are hidden in the interior of the protein, as shown by varying concentrations of urea. On the other hand we were not able to detect any such reasons for the existence of PhI p V isoallergens. Thus, we assume that they are stable conformational isomers of the proteins (allomorphism) or that there are only slight variations in the internal sequences of these proteins (polymorphism) causing distinct pIs.