Chemical Treatment of Plants May Activate Defense Mechanisms and Increase Allergenicity

Many plant allergenic proteins have been isolated and identified as pathogenesis- related proteins. They are produced when biological, chemical, and physical stresses activate defense mechanisms of plants. These defense proteins are thought to play an important role in pathogen resistance, and some defense-related proteins are significant cross-reactive allergens. Accordingly, the allergenicity of plant foods may depend on the growth conditions of plants or given stress activating defense mechanisms. Using turnips and soybeans, we measured the allergenicity of these model food plants after treatments activating their defense mechanisms to determine whether the allergen content of these plants increase. On immunoblotting profiles, IgE-binding protein bands were found to increase in both turnip and soybean treated chemically, and the allergenicity given as total ELISA values were also increased in the stress-given plant samples. These results demonstrated that activating defense mechanism of plants may increase their allergenicity. Soy Protein Research, Japan6, 22-28, 2003.