Bioinformatics evaluation of transgenic organisms for allergenicity potential

One of the evaluation steps in the safety of transgenic crops is the potential for allergenicity. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the allergenicity of the produced proteins of transgenic organisms using bioinformatics analysis before anything else. In this study, three allergen databases (Allergenonline, SDAP and Allermatch) were used to evaluate the bioinformatics of six important proteins of transgenic products. Query sequences were analyzed for survey of allergen sequences by full FASTA and 80 amino acids with more than 50% and 35% similarity in allergen databases, respectively. Among the studied proteins, Chitinase and PRP (pathogenesis-related proteins) showed high homology with allergen proteins, that these proteins have plant origin and are naturally and are consumed by humans. In contrast, growth hormone protein (Growth Hormone-1), Cry1AC (resistant to insect pest), CspB (drought tolerance protein) and (Rpi-vnt1.2) has not shown any homology to allergenic proteins. The results showed that the evaluation of allergenicity and other analysis (study of total proteins) before commercialization of these products seems necessary to confirm the safety of transgenic products.