• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.56 no.12
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• pp.505-513
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• 2013

Because the prevalence of allergic diseases has significantly increased in recent years, understanding the causes and mechanisms of these disorders is of high importance, and intense investigations are ongoing. Current knowledge pinpoints immune tolerance mechanisms as indispensable for healthy immune response to allergens in daily life. It is evident that development and maintenance of allergen-specific T cell tolerance is of vital importance for a healthy immune response to allergens. Such tolerance can be gained spontaneously by dose-dependent exposures to allergens in nature or by allergen-specific immunotherapy. Allergen-specific immunotherapy induces regulatory T cells with the capacity to secrete interleukin-10 and transforming growth factor-${\beta}$, limits activation of effector cells of allergic inflammation (such as mast cells and basophils), and switches antibody isotype from IgE to the noninflammatory type IgG4. Although allergen-specific immunotherapy is the only method of tolerance induction in allergic individuals, several factors, such as long duration of treatment, compliance problems, and life-threatening side effects, have limited widespread applicability of this immunomodulatory treatment. To overcome these limitations, current research focuses on the introduction of allergens in more efficient and safer ways. Defining the endotypes and phenotypes of allergic diseases might provide the ability to select ideal patients, and novel biomarkers might ensure new custom-tailored therapy modalities.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.429-435
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• 2012

Atopic dermatitis (AD) has become a serious epidemic in Korean children. We aimed to investigate the association between vitamin C, E and other nutrients, and serum total IgE/specific IgE levels in children with AD. A total of 119 children (0-24 mo) diagnosed with AD were recruited for this cross-sectional study from a medical center in Seoul. A 24 h recall was used to assess dietary intakes. Serum total and six food-allergen specific IgE levels were measured by CAP-FEIA. Serum vitamin E was also measured but only in 25 out of the total 119 participants. Multiple linear regression analysis was performed to estimate the coefficients between serum IgE levels and dietary intake as well as serum vitamin E. Serum vitamin E levels showed a significantly inverse association with serum total IgE and all specific IgE levels (P < 0.05). Fat intake was inversely related with specific-IgEs for egg whites, milk, buck wheat, soy, and peanuts (P < 0.05). Positive associations were found between carbohydrate (CHO) intake and total IgE and specific IgEs to egg whites, milk, soy, and peanuts (P < 0.05). Vitamin C, E and n-3/n-6 fatty acids were not related with serum total IgE and specific IgE levels except for the association between buck wheat and vitamin E. In addition, there were no significant differences between males and females in dietary intake and serum IgE levels by student's t-test. Although dietary vitamin E showed no association with serum IgE levels, serum vitamin E drew a significant inverse relationship with serum IgE levels. The evidence seems to suggest that vitamin E may possibly lower total and specific-IgEs in children with AD, and that it is important to maintain a relatively high serum vitamin E level in children with AD.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.90-97
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to determined the rate of sensitization to food allergen in children with Atopic Dermatitis (AD) in Korea. A total of 3,783 patients (male = 1983, female = 1800) with AD (age under 18 years) who had visited Samsung Medical Center from 1998 to 2003 were enrolled in the study. Food hypersensitivity was measured by specific IgE to egg, cow's milk, soy, peanut, wheat, buckwheat, beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, crab, salmon, mackerel, etc. Specific IgE levels > 0.7 kU/L. by Captured Allergen Product (CAP) assay were considered positive. Chi-square test at p value < 0.05 was used to examine the difference of the prevalence by sex and age. The rate of sensitization to multiple food allergens was 31.2% and decreased with age. Hypersensitivity to egg showed highest prevalence, which was 24.3%, compared to the prevalence of other foods. High prevalence of hypersensitivity to milk. wheat, soy, peanut, crab or shrimp was observed (11.6- 17.7%). Low prevalence of hypersensitivity to beef, pork, tuna or chicken was observed (1.9-3.5%). Children aged under 3 years had significantly higher prevalence of hypersensitivity to egg, milk, soy and beef than children aged at least 3 years. Our results stress the need for examination of food hypersensitivity aimed at identified and limited each food allergen among children with AD caused by food to help patients outgrow their food allergy.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2009

Cockroaches have been recognized as a major cause of asthma. Bla g 4 is one of the most important German cockroach allergens. The aim of this study is to investigate IgE reactivity to the recombinant Bla g 4 (rBla g 4) in the sera of allergic patients and identify linear IgE binding epitope. For protein expression, full-length Bla g 4 (EF202172) was divided into 5 overlapping peptide fragments (E1: aa 1-100, E2: aa 34-77, E3: aa 74-117, E4: aa 114-156, and E5: aa 153-182). The full-length and 5 peptide fragments of Bla g 4 was generated by PCR and over-expressed in E. coli BL21 (DE3). The IgE binding reactivities of the full-length and peptide fragments were measured by ELISA using 32 serum samples of cockroach allergy. The sera of 8 patients (25%) reacted with rBla g 4. Four sera (100%) showed IgE-binding reactivity to full-length and peptide fragment 4, and 2 sera (50%) reacted with peptide fragment 2. One (20%) serum reacted with peptide fragment 3. The results of ELISA using overlapping recombinant fragments indicated that the epitope region was located at amino acid sequences 34-73 and 78-113, and major IgE epitope of Bla g 4 was located at amino acid sequences 118-152 of C-terminal. B-cell epitope analysis of German cockroach allergen Bla g 4 could contribute to the strategic development of more specific and potentially efficacious immunotherapy.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2001

The chicken meat has been reported as one of the food causing allergic reactions predominantly to Korean. At present, several in vitro tests for immunoglobulinG (IgG)-mediated as well as IgE-mediated food allergy are available. 13 clinically chicken meat-allergic patients were investigated together with 4control subjects for identification of chicken meat-specific reactivity by ELISA. Also, protein profile and IgE, IgGtotal and IgG4-reacting allergens were detected by means of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electro-phoresis (SDS-PAGE)and immunoblotting. Chicken meat extracts were prepared as raw, heated, heat and simulated gastric fluid (SGF) treated samples to characterize the stability of allergen to physicochemical treatment. SDS-PAGE revealed 9~200 kDa bands. And in immunoblotting 7 sera were identified most major bands between 10 and 78 kDa. In case of IgE, six proteins (17, 26, 35, 40, 78 kDa) were predominant in heat-treated extract, and the one (35 kDa) was present in SGF-treated preparations. In case of IgG$_{total}$ and IgG4, most of them showed a patters simmilar to IgE. There were significant differences (P<0.05) in IgE, IgG$_{total}$ , IgG4 Abs to chicken meat between the allergic and control subjects in ELISA. In addition, the concentration of IgG4Abs in the challenge-positive subjects was significantly higher than that of control subjects. It is considered that the specific IgE response to chicken meat was rarely prevalent to Koreans. However, the specific IgG4 response play an important role in the development of allergic symptoms.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.309-315
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• 2012

Objectives: Animal husbandry workers could be exposed to various work hazards including toxic gases, chemicals such as pesticides or organic dust. Immunological evaluation focusing on respiratory allergic hypersensitivity occurrence was under-taken for swine farm workers as a part of the study on immunologic status of dairy barn, swine confinement, and poultry farm workers. Materials and Methods: Peripheral bloods were collected from 25 workers at the year of 2001 and 12 workers at the year of 2012 from swine farms located at Gyeonggi province, Korea. Seven adults not involved with animal husbandry were recruited at the year of 2001 from the same residential area as the swine farm workers'. Level of plasma IgE and 20 respiratory allergen-specific IgE were evaluated using commercially available ELISA kit. Results: Plasma IgE level was approximately five-fold higher in the swine farm workers regardless of the sampling year than the control subjects. Plant allergens from outdoor environments such as golden rod, pigweed, Russian thistle, or ragweed were the major allergens with positive reaction(allergen specific IgE${\geq}$0.7 IU/mL) for the swine farm workers at 2001 year. Meanwhile, house dust mite(Dermatophagoides farinae, D. pteronyssinus) and cockroach, typical indoor allergens in Korea, were the major respiratory allergens for the swine farm workers at 2012 year. Conclusions: Overall, even though our results are primitive, the results suggest that immunological function of swine farm workers could be modulated toward type-2 reactivity.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2019

The diagnosis of atopic dermatitis (AD) includes a test that checks allergen-mediated skin reactions and a method of measuring the total IgE and allergen-specific IgE in blood. However, these test methods are performed directly on the patient, which cause some pain or discomfort. In addition, the skin response test or IgE may result in false negative in about 20% of patients. In the present study, to identify specific biomarkers, HaCaT cells were used as a human keratinocyte that make up the skin, were treated IL-4 and IL-13 for 24 hours to induce a situation similar to keratinocytes in AD patients. In the HaCaT cells, pro-inflammatory cytokine such as IL-5, IL-6, and MCP-1 were increased by IL-4 and IL-13 and skin barrier proteins was reduced by IL-4 and L-13. This results showed that a situation similar to the stratum corneum of an actual patient is induced in HaCaT cells. And then the secretions of Kallikrein (KLK) 5 and KLK7 protease were checked by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). It was specifically increased by IL-4 and IL-13. This showed that AD-related protease can be detected at the protein level using keratinocytes that can be taken in a non-invasive manner and suggested the possibility of applying it to AD diagnosis.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.13-26
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• 2022

Objectives The purpose of this study was to explore the differences in allergic reactions by type of Sasang constitution using multiple allergen simultaneous test(MAST). Methods This study was conducted using the big data of Korean medical health checkups. Subjects with a history of allergic disease, Sasang constitution type information, and MAST results were included. Subjects who had taken drugs before MAST that affected allergic reactions were excluded. We compared total immunoglobulin E(IgE) concentrations, and the number of positive antigens by Sasang constitution using analysis of variance. The presence or absence of a positive reaction and specific IgE concentration classes of 92 antigens in MAST were analyzed by Fisher's exact test or Chi-squared test. Results The distribution of Sasang constitutional types of Tae-Yang, Tae-Eum, So-Yang, and So-Eum among 147 subjects was 2.7%, 42.9%, 38.1%, and 16.3%, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in the total IgE concentration, the number of positive antigens, and specific IgE concentration classes for each antigen. There was a statistically significant difference in MAST-positive reaction for alder and pine antigens by type of Sasang constitution, and Tae-Eum had the most. Conclusions Tae-Eum showed a relatively strong positive reaction to a large number of antigens compared to the other types, but no statistically significant difference was observed. It is necessary to continuously investigate allergic reactions to provide evidence for the treatment of allergic diseases by Sasang constitution.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2008

Objectives : Socheongryong-Tang(小靑龍湯, SCRT), a herbal remedy, has been widely used to treat respiratory disease such as cough and asthma in Oriental countries. Recent years SCRT was known as anti-allergic agent. However, its therapeutic mechanisms including immunoglobuline such as IgE, IgG1, IgG2a productions are unclear. Methods : We investigated the effects of SCRT on levels of antigen specific total antibody, IgE, IgG1, IgG2a using ELISA method in serum from allergen-induced asthma mice. Results : SCRT decreased level of antigen specific IgE significantly. And SCRT treated mice showed downward tendency of IgG1, a Th1 relative antibody, level. But, SCRT did not affect levels of antigen specific total antibody and IgG2a, a Th1 relative antibody. Conclusions : we demonstrated the strong possibility of SCRT as a complementary or alternative drug to western drug also demonstrated that regulation of Th1/Th2 imbalance may be one of mechanism contributed to treatment for respiratory disease by SCRT.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.82-89
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• 2008

Background: Although a skin test is the primary option for detecting allergen-specific IgE in clinics, the serum IgE immunoassay is also important because it allows for the diagnosis of allergy without any accompanying adverse effect on the patient. However, the low detection limit of IgE levels by immunoassay may restrict the use of the method in some occasions, and improving its sensitivity would thus have a significant implication in allergy-immunology clinics. Methods: In this study, we attempted to detect specific serum IgE by using immuno-polymerase chain reaction (IPCR) which combines the antigen-antibody specificity of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) with the amplification power of PCR. Results: Our results demonstrated that Blo t5-specific serum IgE can be detected by IPCR with a 100-fold higher sensitivity than ELISA, and cross-reactivity of serum IgE to other mite allergens is able to be analyzed by using only $0.3{\mu}l$ of serum sample. Use of real-time IPCR seemed to permit more convenient determination of specific serum IgE as well. Conclusion: We believe that IPCR can serve as a valuable tool in determining specific serum IgE, especially when the amount of serum sample is limited.