FABER IgE diagnostic test: a useful help in understanding IgE sensitization to fishes
Alessandri C, Tuppo L, Giangrieco I, Ferrara R, Bernardi ML, Zennaro D, Rafaiani C, Ciancamerla M, Tamburrini M, Ciardiello MA, Mari A
Allergy 72: 667-667. (2017)
Introduction:Parvalbumin is an allergenic protein from fish whitemuscle responsible for more than 95% of food allergies induced byfish. The content of parvalbumin is higher in bottom dwelling fishspecies such as cod and solea whereas is lower in the active fishes(rich in dark muscle) such as tuna, sardine, salmon. The parvalbumincontent also depends on muscle parts: higher levels in rostral partthan in caudal part. Parvalbumin sequences from different speciesare homologous but not identical. FABER test is a new nanobead-based IVD test for specific IgE detection using 122 molecular aller-gens and 122 allergenic extracts, all coupled to chemically activatednano-particles. The array contains Mer mr 1 parvalbumin from Euro-pean hake along with five allergenic extracts from Atlantic cod (Gadm), Atlantic salmon (Sal s), Sardine (Sar m), Common sole (Sol so) andYellowfin tuna (Thu a).Objectives:To investigate the IgE profiles of fish sensitizedpatients.Results:Out of 1751 routinely tested patients, 47 (2.68%) turnedout to be sensitized to at least one fish allergenic preparation. Thesensitization prevalence of each specific fish extract within the 47patients was as follows: Sardine 66%, Sole 62%, Cod 34%, Salmon26%, Tuna 19%. The sensitization prevalence of Mer mr 1 wasdetected 43%. It is worth noting that 25 out of the 47 patients weremonosensitized, with sensitization concentrated exclusively on Sar-dine extract, Sole Extract and Mer mr 1 parvalbumin. Co-reactivityto most or all fish extracts was always present when IgE levels weredetected high or very high. Few single fish species isolated sensitiza-tion have been detected.Conclusions:The presence on the FABER test of several fishextracts together with Mer mr 1 parvalbumin allows to improve thepatient’s sensitization interpretation. The specific advantage ofFABER relies on the chance of testing patients to a broad panel offish extracts complementing the results on the single allergenic pro-tein, thus non missing any non-parvalbumin IgE reactivity. Interpret-ing the sensitization profiles with an accurate patient’s historycombined with specific oral food challenges could provide improve-ment to the allergic patient’s diet.
