IgE epitope mapping using peptide microarray immunoassay

Abstract

IgE epitope mapping has the potential to become an additional tool for food allergy diagnosis/prognosis and to lead to a better understanding of the pathogenesis and tolerance induction of food allergy. Due to its ability to screen thousands of targets in parallel using small volumes of sample, peptide microarray has greatly facilitated large-scale IgE epitope mapping. In the past 10 years, we have developed and optimized a reliable and sensitive peptide microarray immunoassay, which has been successfully applied for IgE epitope mapping of many food allergens in our lab. Here, we describe the method of performing the peptide microarray immunoassay for IgE epitope mapping. In addition, we have upgraded the microarray platform to measure antibody affinity by adding one additional competition step, which is also described in this chapter.