title: Assessment of sensitization to grape and wine allergens as possible causes of adverse reactions to wine: a pilot study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In a recently performed survey with 4000 randomly selected persons, 68 (7.2 %) of 948 respondents reported intolerance and/or allergy-like symptoms to wine. The aim of this study was to analyze whether a real sensitization to wine proteins could be confirmed by diagnostic and/or immunological settings.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For this purpose, 19 subjects with self-reported intolerance to wine of the invited subjects and 10 controls without a history of intolerance participated in an allergological examination (skin prick test, ImmunoCAP for determination of specific IgE antibodies, CAST for testing basophil activation, ImmunoBlot for testing specificity of IgE-antibodies). For the allergological work-up red and white grapes, selected wines, and the purified lipid transfer protein (LTP), a known grape allergen, were used. 7 subjects showed evidence of IgE sensitization to wine or grape extracts, including one control. One participant with symptoms of intolerance showed a positive skin prick test to red grape, a positive ImmunoCAP to grape, a positive cellular antigen stimulation test (CAST) and inhibition of Western blot by removal of cross-reactive carbohydrate determinants (CCD).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The presented study focused on the grape protein-related IgE-mediated cause of intolerance to wine (true allergy) and not on other wine components or fining agents (other forms of intolerance). A sensitization to grape and wine proteins was observed in our cohort. In one case, this reactivity could be explained by cross-reactivity to CCD. The results of this pilot study need to be validated in greater cohorts.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Biophysics, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Jakob-Welder-Weg 26, D-55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jaeckels
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, University Medical Center Mainz, Langenbeckstraße 1, D-55131 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Iris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bellinghausen
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Biophysics, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Jakob-Welder-Weg 26, D-55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fronk
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, University Medical Center Mainz, Langenbeckstraße 1, D-55131 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Bärbel
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Heydenreich
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, University Medical Center Mainz, Langenbeckstraße 1, D-55131 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Saloga
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Biophysics, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Jakob-Welder-Weg 26, D-55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Heinz
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Decker
keywords: CAST; CCD; LTP; Wine; Wine intolerance