Identification and Annotation of Peptide Allergens in Prunus dulcis

Abstract

Approximately, 10% of the world population is facing the challenge of food allergy in direct or indirect way. In this study, a genome-wide identification and annotation of the novel putative allergen from almond is performed. Initially, the whole proteome of almond (31,000 proteins) was scanned by Allergenonline, a publically available database of already reported allergens from different sources. The detailed analysis suggests that there are 430 putative allergens which reduced to 45 on motif-based screening using AllFam database. These predicted allergens are annotated for their function by using PFAM, GO databases and orthology analysis. To validate our prediction, we have used structural insights of allergen and antibody interactions for one of the predicted putative allergen protein, homologous to Pru ar 3.0101allergen from apricot. The structure of putative allergen was modeled and molecular docking studies were performed against the antibody. The best docked conformation was subjected to molecular simulation studies to confirm the stable binding of these two molecules. This detailed analysis suggests that the identified allergen will show cross reactivity similar to Pru ar 3.0101 allergen from apricot. This is one of the first report of identifying and annotating the homologous of Pru ar 3.0101 allergen in almond.