Results
The frequency of 2S albumin-binding B-cells was increased in allergic
(median: 0.01%) compared to tolerant (median: 0.006%) and non-atopic
donors (median: 0.0015%, p=0.008). The majority of mAbs (74%, 29/39)
bound specifically to Ara h2 and/or 6. Non-specific mAbs (9/10) were
mainly derived from non-atopic controls. In allergic donors, 89% of
heavy chain gene transcripts consisted of VH3-family genes, compared
with only 54% in sensitized but tolerant and 63% of non-atopic donors.
Additionally, certain HCDR3 sequence motifs were associated with allergy
or tolerance upon hierarchical clustering of their Levenshtein
distances.