Novel drug allergy diagnostic kits

Allergy is a growing health concern in developed countries. However, its diagnosis is often difficult, delaying the prompt administration of treatment or in the case of drug allergy, the administration of inappropriate alternative treatment or even the cessation of treatment.

To address the issue, scientists on the EU-funded DENDRIMMUNEASSAYS (Development of sophisticated dendrimeric nanostructural materials with potential applications in drug allergy diagnosis: Towards immunoassays and cellular tests (basophil activation tests)) project set out to develop sophisticated nanostructural materials with potential applications in drug allergy diagnosis.

Study activities focused on the identification of still unknown drug antigenic determinants by using different drug models. As antigenic determinants, scientists define the structures derived from drugs that are able to induce the production of immunoglobulin IgE by the immune system.

Using aminocephalosporins, diclofenac and penicillin as drug models, the consortium proposed different structures that could serve as antigenic determinants. They studied their molecular recognition by IgE antibodies from sera derived from different patients. The recognised structures will be anchored onto a solid phase to develop drug allergy diagnostic kits.

In this context, researchers have explored the utilisation of dendrimeric silica particles - envisaged to become an indispensable tool in in vitro clinical diagnostics. Additional solid phases based on cellulose functionalised with hapten-carrier conjugates proved useful for screening sera with different specificities. Furthermore, the consortium explored the crosslinking of IgE to activate blood basophils. Nanoparticle size and the distance between conjugates proved highly relevant to the sensitivity of the diagnostic assay.

Taken together, the results of the DENDRIMMUNEASSAYS study are expected to optimise and expand the available repertoire of drug allergy testing assays. The use of nanomaterials could potentially enable development of drug allergy microarrays for simultaneously screening thousands of antigenic epitopes.