Immune responses to meat allergens

Research period: 1 May 2021 to 30 April 2025

Allergic reactions to meat and meat products are still little researched. For this reason, there is also little awareness of the fact that people can have allergic reactions to meat. As part of a precursor project funded by the FWF, UAS^Professor Dr Ines^Swoboda and her research group succeeded in identifying the first allergens from white and red meat, producing them in recombinant form and characterising them.

Building on the findings from the previous project, the current project, which is also funded by the FWF, focuses on the identification and precise biochemical and immunological characterisation of further meat allergens with the aim of completing the spectrum of relevant meat allergens and determining their clinical significance. The project is also dedicated to analysing the cross-reactivity between meat allergens and allergens from other animal foods (e.g. fish, seafood, insects). The knowledge about clinically relevant meat allergens and cross-reactive allergens from other animal foods will help to improve the diagnosis and treatment of meat allergies and related allergies.

Another focus of the project is research into a special form of meat allergy, known as α-gal allergy. In this unusual allergy induced by red meat, patients react with the sugar molecule α-Gal present in red meat, but the actual sensitisation to α-Gal occurs through a tick bite. In collaboration with colleagues at the Medical University of Vienna, Dr Swoboda and her team are investigating the reactions of immune cells to tick saliva and trying to identify components in tick saliva that contribute to the development of an allergic reaction to α-Gal. The hope is that a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that lead to sensitisation to α-Gal will also help to better understand allergic sensitisation to other food allergens and thus prevent it in the future.

Research objectives

• Identification and characterisation of meat allergens
• Analysing the cross-reactivity between meat allergens and allergens from other animal allergen sources (e.g. fish, seafood, insects)
• Evaluation of the stability of meat allergens to heat exposure and to enzymes of the digestive tract
• Analysis of the transport of meat allergens through gastrointestinal epithelial cells
• Identification of α-Gal-carrying proteins in tick saliva
• Identification of components in tick saliva that induce an allergic reaction against α-Gal
• Analysis of the reaction of immune cells to components in tick saliva

• Medical University of Vienna (Michiel Wijnveld)
• FAZ - Floridsdorf Allergy Centre (Dr Wolfgang Hemmer)
• Public Health Department, Superintendência de Controle de Endemias, São Paulo, Brazil (Dr Adriano Pintér)
• Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology (LSB), Technical University of Munich, Germany (Prof Dr Veronika Somoza)

Health and Quality of Life

Competence Center for Molecular Biotechnology