Leung & Chu (2001) [1703] reported that all 15 subjects whose sera was used in their study had clinical histories of at least two or more symptoms, including pruritus, urticaria, angiodema and gastrointestinal disorders, within 1 hour after ingestion of oysters.

Lehrer & McCants (1987) [1575] reported two groups of patients with sensitivity to oysters: 6 adults who reported sensitivity to oysters only and 7 adults who reported sensitivity to both oysters and crustaceans. All the symptoms of the first group were gasterointestinal including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal cramps. 5/7 with sensitivity to oysters and crustacea reported gasterointestinal symptoms (4/5 only reported gasterointestinal symptoms) and 2 reported wheezing and shortness of breath (one of these also reported urticaria and angioedema).

Wu & Williams (2004) [1709] used commercial extracts of shrimp (Penaeus sp.), crab (Callinectes sapidus), lobster (Homarus americanus), clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), scallop (Pecten magellanicus), oyster (Crassostrea virginica) and made extracts of abalone and limpet in house.

Wu & Williams (2004) [1709] defined a positive SPT as 3 mm greater than the negative control.

Wu & Williams (2004) [1709] tested 84 patients who reported shellfish allergy.

Wu & Williams (2004) [1709] aimed to use SPT to diagnose to which shellfish their patients were allergic. They reported that 70 patients gave positive SPTs to a shellfish and that 25/70 patients were sensitised (i.e. SPT positive) to crustacea alone, 27/70 were sensitised to both crustaceans and molluscs and 18/70 were sensitised to molluscs alone. Sensitisation to oyster was more frequent than to clam or scallop with 15/70 but less frequent than to abalone, limpet or crustacea. A positive SPT to to clam or scallop predicted a positive SPTs to oyster with 0.56 and 0.46 probablitity while a negative SPT gave 0.16-0.17 probability of a positive SPT to oyster. Similarly, an oyster positive SPTs predicted a 0.33 probability of a positive SPT to scallop or clam and a negative oyster SPT gave 0.07 and 0.11 probability of reaction to scallop or clam. By contrast, there was a much smaller difference in the probability of a skin test reaction with gastropods and crustacea with positive and negatives test results to oyster.

Leung & Chu (2001) [1703] extracted freshly killed Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas. Whole oyster was homogenized in PBS, pH 7.2 with a polytron, mixed for 8 h in PBS containing PMSF (100 µg/mL) and aprotinin (1 µg/mL) (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, IN, USA). The lysate was then centrifuged for 20 min at 10000 x g at 4°C.

Leung et al. (1996) [1557] took approximately 2 gm of muscle protein from several species of molluscs and crustacea which was boiled in deionized distilled water for 10 minutes. The boiled muscle was homogenized with lysis buffer (100 mM Tris, 10 mM EDTA, 10 mM 2-mercaptoethanol) or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) in a Polytron homogenizer (Brinkman) for 30 seconds and centrifuged at 14,000 rpm for 10 minutes. The supernatant was aliquoted and stored in -70° C.

Lehrer & McCants (1987) [1575] boiled oyster, Crassostrea virginica, in deionized water for 15 minutes. Extracts of raw and boiled oyster (extracts of crustacea were made from meat with PBS in a waring blender for 3 minutes followed by overnight at 4°C on a skaker), the cooking water from boiled oyster and the shell fluid from raw oyster, were dialyzed against deionized water and centrifuged at 80000 x g. The supernatants were lyophilized and stored desciccated at -20°C.

Leung & Chu (2001) [1703] and Leung et al. (1996) [1557] used immunoblotting.

Lehrer & McCants (1987) [1575] used RAST.

Leung & Chu (2001) [1703] used sera from 15 subjects with a clinical histories of reaction to oyster and sera from 10 controls.

Leung et al. (1996) [1557] used 9 sera, which had been previously shown to react to recombinant shrimp tropomyosin.

Lehrer & McCants (1987) [1575] tested sera from 3 groups of patients: 6 adults who reported sensitivity to oysters only, 7 adults who reported sensitivity to both oysters and crustaceans, and 12 subjects who reported either tolerance of oysters or lack of exposure but were sensitive to crustacea. 

Leung et al. (1996) [1557] loaded 100 to 150 µg of muscle extract for 1D-SDS-PAGE onto a 10% acrylamide separating gel with a 5% stacking gel. Samples were denatured by boiliing in 2X sample loading buffer (0.125 mol/L Tris, pH 6.8, 4% SDS, 10 mM 2-mercaptoethanol, and 0.002% bromophenol blue) for 10 minutes. Leung & Chu (2001) [1703] similarly used 10% acrylamide separating gels.

Leung et al. (1996) [1557] reported that IgE from 9/9 sera from shrimp allergic subjects bound to a 38 kDa band, 2/9 bound to a 49 kDa band and 1/9 to a 69 kDa band with extract from oyster (Crassostrea gigas).

Leung & Chu (2001) [1703] reported that recombinant Cra g 1.03 was able to inhibit IgE reactivity against itself, at 59 kDa, as well as a 38-kDa band of the oyster extract on the immunoblot. Absorption of sera from oyster allergy subjects with recombinant shrimp Met e 1, lobster Pan s 1 or crab Cha f 1 was able to remove most but not all of the IgE reactivity to either recombinant Cra g 1.03 or to oyster extract.