Allergen Analysis of Burdock Allergy

Abstract

Burdock (Arctium lappa) is a kind of the root vegetable eaten mainly in Japan. We reported two cases of immediate hypersensitive reaction to burdock. In the skin prick-prick test, positive reactions were observed in response to burdock in both cases. In immunoblotting, we detected bands at MW 35 kDa and 17 kDa. The allergenic proteins were identified from the amino acid sequences of the peptide fragments:35 kDa protein as the peroxidase (POD) and 17 kDa protein as the [Cu-Zn] superoxide dismutase (SOD). Both of them are known to be defense-related proteins found in plants.