Bioinformatic studies on the group 2 allergens of Dermatophagoides farinae from China

The present study aimed to characterize the group 2 allergens of the house dust mite Dermatophagoides farinae (Der f 2) from Hainan Island, a tropical region in Southeastern China. We cloned and sequenced cDNA coding for Der f 2 and found an additional region of 87 base pairs (bp) (from +77 to +163 bp) in our strain that was absent in the reference sequence (GenBank AB195580) used for primer design. However, the BLAST analysis identified the same sequence in strains reported from Reinbek, Germany, and Guangzhou, China. A phylogenetic tree was constructed using the Der f 2 nucleotide sequences from different regions or countries and showed that the Hainan sequence clustered with the strains from Reinbek and Guangzhou. Analysis of the translated amino acid sequence suggests that the encoded peptide is hydrophobic and extracellular with a cleavage site between the 17th and 18th amino acid residues and contains a strong trans-membrane helix from the 6th amino acid to the 24th amino acid, indicating a MD-2-related lipid recognition domain in this protein. Furthermore, the secondary structure of the pro-protein consists of 16.57% alpha helix, 32.57% extended strand and 50.86% random coil. In brief, we obtained a gene coding for Der f 2 and predicted the molecular characteristics of this protein using bioinformatics tools. Our analysis identified that this gene showed several significant differences to those reported previously.