The yellow-legged Asian hornet, (Vespa velutina Lepetelier, 1836), native to Southeast Asia, India, and China, has been accidentally introduced into South Korea in 2003 and France in 2004. The spread of the invasive hornet throughout Europe has been very rapid, resulting in frequent stinging incidents. Various studies have been carried out on the nature of the protein components of the Vespidae venom. It has been found that the allergens of Vespa velutina (VV), the European hornet (Vespa crabo Linnaeus, 1758 and the common wasp (Vespula spp) have a high similarity in their main proteins.

The structures generated by homology-modelling for the antigen 5 (Vesp v 5) from Asian hornet together with the main allergens from European hornet (Ves c 5.01 and Ves c 5.02), were studied using APBS (Adaptive Poisson-Boltzmann Solver), a continuum solvation method. The results obtained joined to another parameters calculated such as: LogP, vLogp, Molecular Lipophilicity Potential, among others, allows, not only, to check the high degree of similarity among these proteins but also, some differences that make possible the analysis of their epitopes. The obtained information could be useful in the characterization of Hymenoptera venom allergy (HVA) as well as for specific immunotherapy (SIT), since knowledge of the structure of allergens is essential for the precise diagnosis and treatment of HVA.