Relationship between IgG₁ and IgG₄ antibodies to foods and the development of IgE antibodies to inhalant allergens. I. Establishment of a scoring system for the overall food responsiveness and its application to 213 unselected children

Abstract

To obtain reference levels for subsequent investigations, we analysed the IgG1 and IgG4 antibody levels to common foods in the sera of 213 unselected children (age 3 months to 14 years). The children were clustered into five age groups and tested on a broad screening panel of common foods. We used the IgG1 and IgG4 RAST with Sepharose-coupled antigens: cows' milk, hens' egg white, banana, legumes (a mixture of soybean and peanut), grains (a mixture of wheat and rice), potato, orange and pork. In all age groups and all antigens, a considerable variability in the antibody response was found. As for some assays more than half of the sera were negative or borderline, statistics based on interval or ordinal scaling were considered inappropriate and we resorted to nominal classification. We decided to use, for each of the assays, the 75-percentile of the age group as a cut-off level. Each antibody titre was thus converted into positive (more than the 75-percentile of that age group) or negative; the number of positive tests was used as the score. This resulted in a sigma G1-score and a sigma G4 score (summed scores for IgG1 and IgG4 antibodies, respectively). The results of the present study indicate that children with a high response to one food tend to have elevated responses to other non-related foods, possibly explained by a defective mucosal barrier and/or a hyperactive immune system. This suggests that a high-food responder phenotype may exist.

Relationship between IgG1 and IgG4 antibodies to foods and the development of IgE antibodies to inhalant allergens. II. Increased levels of IgG antibodies to foods in children who subsequently develop IgE antibodies to inhalant allergens

“…I n a previous paper [ 14], we established an age-and (to some extent) diet-independent scoring system for IgGi and IgG.] responsiveness to foods.…”

Relation between IgG antibodies to foods and IgE antibodies to milk, egg, cat, dog and/or mite in a cross‐sectional study

“…The foods tested were cow’s milk, chicken’s egg white, orange, meat, potato, a mixture of wheat and rice and a mixture of soybean and peanut. These foods were selected in an earlier study [ 21]. The selected antigens cover the normal spectrum of foods given to infants in The Netherlands.…”

The Potent lgG4-lnducing Antigen in Banana Is a Mannose-Binding Lectin, <i>BanLec-</i><i>I</i>

“…During an investigation of the antibody response to a broad panel of ingested foods [2,3], we found that the IgG antibody response to banana extract was much stronger than expected on the basis of quantities commonly in gested. This was particularly the case for lgG4 antibodies and much less so for IgGl or IgA antibodies.…”