Abstract

Profilin is an actin monomer-binding protein that controls the dynamic turnover of actin filaments and is ubiquitously present in different organisms ranging from prokaryotes to higher eukaryotes. Maize (Zea mays) profilin-4 isoform is a pollen-specific protein. Birch profilin isoform is a known allergen but maize profilin is yet to be characterized. In this study, we investigated the properties of maize profilin-4 isoform’s allergenicity. To this end, we first analyzed profilin-4 isoform’s physicochemical properties, including molecular weight (~14kD), theoretical pI (4.63), and amino acids composition; and found that it might have allergenic potency. Then we tested the potential B cell epitope candidates using different immune-informatics tools housed at IEDB analysis resource. For the B cell epitope prediction, potential antigenic sites on the protein surface were predicted by both propensity scale and machine learning method followed by their mapping of 3D structure prediction. Our findings suggest that profilin-4 isoform is a potential allergen and can induce allergic responses.

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