Abstract:
An attempt has been made to detect airborne pollen of Lagerstroemia
speciosa (LS) and Spathodea campanulata (SC) – two common avenue
trees of India as potential sources of aeroallergens and also to identify the
major IgE-reactive components present in them. The airborne pollen concentration was assessed using a Burkard sampler. A detailed questionnaire
on clinical data of 1490 patients was recorded based on hospital data. We
assessed the allergenicity of pollen by in vivo and in vitro tests. The correlation among meteorological factors, pollen seasons and allergenic potency
of patients was assessed by multiple regression analysis. The sensitivity of
patients to pollen antigens was highly correlated with pollen seasons. In
SDS–PAGE, 15 protein bands were detected from LS pollen, while 14 bands
from SC. The IgE-specific immunoblotting with patients’ sera allergic to LS
displayed five major allergens, while four major allergens were detected
from SC. This would be the first report from India to prove the allergenic
potentiality of airborne pollen of these two common avenue trees of India.
