The carbohydrate moiety of house dust allergen

Abstract

Purified house dust allergen has been found to contain monosaccharides of plant and animal origin, and has been partially fractionated by DEAE-Sephadex column chromatography. The carbohydrate is highly branched, suffering little attack during periodate oxidation. Furanose configuration for a proportion of the sugars (pentoses) is indicated by release of formaldehyde with periodate, and liberation of pentose by very mild hydrolysis. It is likely that terminal reducing sugar units are engaged in Maillard reactions with peptide.

Mild degradation procedures aimed at specifically destroying sites responsible for allergenic activity included partial acid hydrolysis, sodium borohydride reduction, periodate oxidation and proteolysis. No single procedure, however, was found to destroy unequivocally the activity of the molecule, though all residues were less active.

It is suggested that the active sites in the allergen are to be found in groupings other than simple oligosaccharides or peptides.