title: Standardization of allergen extracts for immunotherapy: where do we stand?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The current state of the art in allergen standardization and recent progress in the field is summarized, and future developments are discussed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The main focus of recent research in allergen standardization was on sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays or competitive tests for the quantification of individual allergens in extracts. New assays for quantifying major or minor allergens have been developed for tree and weed pollens from the Mediterranean area, grass pollens, and foods such as peanut and apple. In several cases, a good correlation with allergenic activity, measured by inhibition tests, was obtained. In addition, the potential of cellular mediator release assays in allergen standardization was evaluated in one study.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Several new tests have been developed to make more major and minor allergens from various allergen sources accessible to allergen standardization programmes such as the CREATE project. It is expected that assays to determine the majority of all clinically relevant major allergens from aeroallergen sources will be available in the near future. Standardized and validated mediator release assays may be a complementary tool for evaluating the biological potency of reference allergens and for correlating allergen concentrations to biological potency.
authors.affiliation: Research Center Borstel, Division of Molecular and Clinical Allergology, Borstel, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolf-Meinhard
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: Lothar
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Vogel
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vieths
mesh_terms: D000485:Allergens / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003888:Desensitization, Immunologic / Q000592:standards; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D012015:Reference Standards
chemical_list: D000485:Allergens