Allergens are transported through the respiratory epithelium

Abstract

We used a top-down approach with a wide repertoire of wet laboratory and in silico techniques for analyzing the pathogenesis of early events within the type I allergic reactions. We could show a caveolar-dependent transport of the birch pollen allergen through the respiratory epithelium of allergic patients but not of their healthy controls. The application of discovery-driven methodologies can provide new hypotheses worth further analyses of complex multifactorial diseases such as type I allergy.