Development of a novel polyclonal antibody against bovine αS1-casein IgE epitopes for prediction of potential allergenicity of milk in foods

Abstract

ABSTRACTBovine αS1-casein (αS1-CN) is the main allergen in cow's milk, and immunoglobulin E (IgE) epitopes are the material basis to trigger allergic reactions. Thus, IgE epitopes could be as key targets for precise αS1-CN detection and allergenicity assessment. Here, we designed a tandem containing nine IgE linear epitopes of αS1-CN (tαS1-CN), expressed the recombinant tαS1-CN in Escherichia coli, and prepared the rabbit polyclonal antibody against recombinant tαS1-CN (pAb-tαS1-CN). The obtained recombinant tαS1-CN had a purity of 94.43% and retained the antigenicity and potential allergenicity of IgE epitopes. The pAb-tαS1-CN could recognize the nine IgE epitopes of αS1-CN, and also showed high specificity. The ability of pAb-tαS1-CN to evaluate the potential allergenicity of milk in foods was validated by sera from cow's milk allergy patients. These findings indicate that our prepared pAb-tαS1-CN may represents a valuable tool for the evaluation of milk allergenicity in processed foods.

Keywords

• Milk allergy
• αS1-casein
• IgE epitope
• recombinant protein
• polyclonal antibody
• allergenicity prediction