Meat Allergy

Why do meat and meat products cause allergic reactions? The reason why very little is known about this is that diagnosis is still carried out using poorly characterised and insufficiently standardised meat extracts. The aim of the project is to first identify meat allergens, then clone them and finally produce them recombinantly. These allergens are proteins that can be used to improve the diagnosis of meat allergies.

Project duration: December 2013 to November 2016

Allergic reactions to food are among the most important and dangerous IgE-mediated allergies, as they are often associated with life-threatening anaphylactic reactions. So far, there is only limited knowledge about allergic reactions caused by meat. The focus of this project is the identification and characterisation of allergens from different meat sources (e.g.: poultry, beef, pork, lamb and game).
Identified allergens will be expressed in bacterial expression systems to generate recombinant molecules. These recombinant meat allergens are first analysed with regard to their biochemical and structural characteristics and then evaluated with regard to their IgE binding capacity and allergenicity. Those recombinant allergens that show immunological properties comparable to natural allergens represent molecules that can be used for an improved diagnosis of meat allergies.

A further aim of this project is to use the recombinant meat allergens for the production of meat allergen-specific rabbit antisera and to use these for the development of sandwich ELISA assay systems. These ELISA systems can be used to detect meat allergens in food.

Allergy Research

Since 1 August 2020, five interdisciplinary research areas have replaced existing research fields.