Projects/Special Interest Groups

In vivo testing to allergens is largely skin prick testing using crude or purified allergens. This testing requires a clinical setting with medically trained staff to be in attendance to monitor the patient and measure the response to allergens applied directly to the skin. At a minimum the level of discomfort experienced by the patient is the irritation due to a positive control response. There is often a poor correlation between in vitro specific IgE and skin prick testing. Alternative, low risk approaches to allergy testing with a high predicative value for the likelihood of reaction to allergens inhaled, airborne or drug related are desirable. 

 

Basophils and mast cells are key cells in the allergic responses. However there is increasing evidence in murine studies to show that the basophil mediates an early response in allergic reactions. Unlike the mast cell, the basophil while present in low numbers in peripheral blood (<1%) can be isolated and used to measure functional response in effector cells in ex vivo allergen exposure. Flow cytometry is used to measure upregulation of markers such as CD63 and CD203c on basophils tagged with a fluorochrome conjugated anti CCR3.

The study will consider the utility of this method to assess the allergic response to allergens that are not available for specific IgE method used at QEII Clinical Immunology (Phadia) and for drug allergy testing in patients.​

Autoantibodies are directed against various molecules or complexes in the cell nucleus and are generally associated with a number of autoimmune diseases such as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Sjogrens Syndrome and other mixed connective tissue diseases.  However, these autoantibodies are also detectable in the healthy population.  A number of target antigens for anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) have been well characterised and are considered markers of specific autoimmune diseases (i.e. La, Ro, Sm, dsDNA and the RNP complex).  In addition, there are other ANAs routinely detected which do not have a characterised target antigen or disease association. 

 

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