Abstract
The role of molds as asthmogenic allergen was studied.
The results obtained were as follows :
1) Most of the molds isolated from house dust were species of Penicillium, Aspergillus, Cladosporium and Alternaria. Their incidences in house dust were 39.5% againt Penicillium, 30.6% against Aspergillus, 23.4% against Cladosporium and 6.5% against Alternaria.
2) The fractionation of molds extracts by Sephadex G-200 revealed three fractions. Each fraction contained polysaccharide and protein or polypeptide components. Individual variations were observed among the patients with asthma in their skin reactivity to the three fractions, but, in general, the first fraction of high molecular size showed the greater skin reactivity in all of three types of skin reactions.
3) The testing of the rabbit antisera against Penicillium, Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Alternaria and house dust showed evidence of the presence of cross antigenicity among them.
4) In the patients with combined type of skin reactions (immediate and Arthus type or immediate, Arthus and delayed type), as compared with the patients with immediate type alone, the asthma showed a tendency to become severe.
5) There was found no significant difference of serum antibodies (precipitating or hemagglutinating) to the four molds betweed the patients and control subjects.
6) In Immunof luorescent technique, the specific staining was observed only in the cytoplasma of polymorphonuclear cells. The significantly higher incidence of positive reaction was observed in the patient than in controls : 41.2 to 43.7% in the patients and 15% in controls.
However, there was no clear correlation between the immunofluorescent reaction and the skin reaction or the degree of severity of asthma, respectively.
