Structure of allergens and structure based epitope predictions.

Area of Science:

• Immunology
• Structural Biology
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Allergen structure determination is crucial for analyzing surface features and mapping epitopes.
• Experimental methods like crystallography and NMR, alongside computational predictions, are used for this purpose.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review existing structural information on allergens and their classification into protein fold families.
• To describe available allergen-antibody complexes and compare experimentally obtained epitopes.
• To discuss methods for linear and conformational epitope mapping, including a novel prediction approach.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of structural data on allergens.
• Analysis of crystallographic and NMR-based structural studies.
• Description of computational epitope prediction methods, including structure-based approaches.

Main Results:

• Summary of classified allergen protein fold families.
• Compilation of available allergen-antibody complex structures.
• Comparison of experimentally determined epitopes.
• Discussion of established and novel epitope mapping techniques.

Conclusions:

• Structural insights into allergens are fundamental for understanding allergic responses.
• A combination of experimental and computational methods provides comprehensive epitope mapping.
• New approaches integrating structural similarity and cross-reactivity data enhance epitope prediction accuracy.