New recombinant DNA expressing the Che a1 allergen, useful for diagnosis and treatment of allergy caused by Chenopodium album pollen, also derived polypeptides

摘要

A recombinant DNA (I), having a 567 base pair sequence (S1), given in the specification, encoding polypeptides with allergenic activity and containing at least one allergenic epitope in common with the Che a1 allergen of Chenopodium album, is new. Independent claims are also included for the following: (1) recombinant DNA (Ia) that hybridizes to sequence (S1) under highly stringent conditions; (2) recombinant DNA (Ib) having at least 60 % identity with sequence (S1) and encoding a polypeptide with the same allergenicity as Che a1 or reduced allergenicity (hypoallergenic); (3) recombinant polypeptide (II) corresponding to Che a1, or its fragments, having a 168 amino acid sequence (S2), given in the specification, and the antigenicity of at least one Che a1 epitope; (4) recombinant polypeptide (IIa) of allergens homologous to Che a1 in other (un)related species, and their fragments, having antigenicity as for (II); (5) polypeptides having sequences defined for (II) and (IIa) but with attenuated allergenicity; (6) eukaryotic expression vectors containing (I)-(Ib) and expressing the polypeptides of (3)-(5); (7) eukaryotic hosts transformed with the vectors of (6); (8) producing recombinant forms of the polypeptides of (3)-(5); and (9) isolating Che a1 from the pollen of C. album by gel-permeation chromatography on Sephadex G-75 then reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on Nucleosil C-18.