title: Diagnostic use of recombinant Tha p 2 in the allergy to Thaumetopoea pityocampa.
abstract: Thaumetopoea pityocampa causes allergies and skin and ocular lesions. No commercial tools are currently available for the clinical diagnosis of this allergy. We aimed to develop an in vitro method for the diagnosis of this allergy to avoid patients undergoing in vivo tests with insect extracts. Recombinant Tha p 2 was produced and used in an ELISA validated with 15 allergic patients. Subsequently, 42 subjects recruited from a random sampling cross-sectional study were analysed. The ELISA sensitivity and specificity were 93.3% and 100%, respectively, for the allergic patients and 71.4% and 95.3%, respectively, for the epidemiological study. The positive ELISA results correlated with the skin prick test areas with the whole body and the setae extracts. Professional exposure and short latency of symptoms onset were risk factors for a positive result in the ELISA. In conclusion, our ELISA is very useful for T. pityocampa allergy diagnosis and for epidemiologic testing.
authors.affiliation: Fundación para la Investigación Biomédica del Hospital Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: A I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Mahillo
authors.affiliation: Fundación para la Investigación Biomédica del Hospital Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Carballeda-Sangiao
authors.affiliation: Service of Allergy, Hospital Universitario Río Hortega, Valladolid, Spain.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Vega
authors.affiliation: Service of Allergy, Hospital Universitario Río Hortega, Valladolid, Spain.
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: García-Ortiz
authors.affiliation: INRA, UR633 Zoologie Forestière, Orléans, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roques
authors.affiliation: Service of Immunology, Hospital Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Moneo
authors.affiliation: Service of Immunology, Hospital Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: González-Muñoz
mesh_terms: D000485:Allergens / Q000276:immunology*; D000818:Animals; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D006801:Humans; D006967:Hypersensitivity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology*; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D009036:Moths / Q000276:immunology*; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000485:Allergens; D019476:Insect Proteins; D011994:Recombinant Proteins
keywords: Thaumetopoea pityocampa; allergy; epidemiology; recombinant allergen; setae