A 35-year-old female, professional diver, reported
nausea,
vomiting, and systemic
hives 20 to 30 minutes after ingestion of antipasto made with jellyfish. Patient reported prior episodes of swelling after
stings from several different creatures, including jelly fish. She also developed a systemic
allergic reaction after
sting from an unknown creature while diving. On the initial visit to our hospital, serum total
IgE level was 545IU/ml. We extracted crude
allergen from jellyfish and evaluated
allergen specific
IgE antibody levels using ELISA. Patient samples showed higher levels of jellyfish-derived
allergen specific
IgE than healthy control samples. Basophils were isolated from the peripheral blood of patient. Stimulation with jellyfish-derived
allergen showed expression of
surface antigens on basophils increased in a concentration-dependent manner. Methods using
sodium dodecyl sulfate poly acrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting showed
acid-soluble
collagen fraction from jellyfish contained above 250kDa weighed
protein that may have caused this current event. A provocation test using jellyfish samples was not performed due to risk of
anaphylactic shock. The patient was diagnosed with a jellyfish
allergy due to
IgE mediated
anaphylaxis after ingestion. She was asked to refrain from consuming any food containing jellyfish.
IgE-mediated
food allergy caused by jellyfish is rare worldwide.
Collagen was speculated to be an
allergen in this study. Additional study to detect specific
allergens related to jellyfish
allergy would be particularly useful to specify disease phenotypes and individual care in future.