Red meat allergic patients have a selective IgE response to the α‐Gal glycan

D Apostolovic, T A T Tran, S Sánchez-Vidaurre, T Cirkovic Velickovic, M Starkhammar, C Hamsten, M van Hage

Galactose-α-1,3-galactose (α-Gal) is a mammalian carbohydrate with significance in a novel type of food allergy. Patients with IgE against α-Gal report severe allergic symptoms 3 to 6 hours after red meat consumption. We investigated whether IgE from red meat allergic patients recognize other mammalian glycans than α-Gal or glycans from the plant kingdom and insects of importance in allergy. We found that all 24 red meat allergic patients neither had an IgE antibody response against the other abundant mammalian glycan N-glycolylneuraminic acid nor against cross-reactive carbohydrate determinants from plant or venom sources (nCup a 1, nArt v 1 and MUXF3). Deglycosylation of an α-Gal containing protein, bovine thyroglobulin, significantly reduced the IgE response. In conclusion we show that red meat allergic patients have a selective IgE response to the α-Gal glycan found in red meat. Other common glycans reactive in allergic disease are not targets of red meat allergic patients' IgE. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.