Production of recombinant allergen birch pollen Betv1a modified with hydrophobic moieties in the host Escherichia coli

Specific immunotherapy (SIT) treatment of allergies is the controlled administration of a specific allergen to an allergic patient towards the alleviation or remediation of the disease. Successful immunotherapy is associated with a shift in the immune response from type 2 to type 1 phenotype away from IgE production. But the main obstacles in SIT include the need for a standardized source for the allergen and for an adjuvant/delivery system that would promote type 1 immunity to allergens. This work focuses on the recombinant expression of European birch (Betula verrucosa) pollen's main allergen Betv1a with covalent modifications with hydrophobic structures whose additions were made to increase immunogenicity and to facilitate the process of complexing to the hydrophobic Proteosome adjuvant/delivery system. Proteosomes consist of outer membrane proteins extracted from Neisseria meningitidis which are known to favor type 1 immunity to antigens. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...