Digestibility of Food Allergens and Nonallergenic Proteins in Simulated Gastric Fluid and Simulated Intestinal FluidA Comparative Study

• Published in: Journal of agricultural and food chemistry Vol. 50; no. 24; pp. 7154 - 7160
• Main Authors: Fu, Tong-Jen, Abbott, Upasana R, Hatzos, Catherine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 20.11.2002
• Subjects: Allergens - metabolism; Animal, plant, fungal and microbial proteins, edible seaweeds and food yeasts; Antigens, allergens; Biological and medical sciences; Body Fluids - metabolism; Dietary Proteins - metabolism; Digestion; Drug Stability; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; Food Hypersensitivity; Food industries; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Fundamental immunology; Gastric Mucosa - metabolism; Immediate hypersensitivity. Allergy. Anaphylaxis, etc; Immunobiology; Intestinal Mucosa - metabolism; Lactoglobulins - metabolism; Models, Biological; Ovalbumin - metabolism; Papain - metabolism; Pepsin A - analysis; Pepsin A - metabolism; Plant Lectins - metabolism; Stomach; Lectin; Storage protein; Enzyme; Gut; allergenicity assessment; Contractile protein; Foodstuff; Allergenicity; Protein; Digestive stability; simulated gastric fluid; food allergens; Simulation model; simulated intestinal fluid; Comparative study; Allergen; Digestibility
• ISSN: 0021-8561; 1520-5118
• DOI: 10.1021/jf020599h

Information on the comparative digestibility of food allergens and nonallergenic proteins is crucial when stability to digestion is to be used as a criterion to assess the allergenic potential of novel proteins. In this work, we compared the digestive stability of a number of food allergens and proteins of unproven allergenicity and examined whether allergens possess a higher stability than nonallergenic proteins of similar cellular functions, and whether there is a correlation between protein digestibility and allergenicity. The stability of groups of storage proteins, plant lectins, contractile proteins, and enzymes, both allergens and proteins with unproven allergenicity, in a standard simulated gastric fluid and a standard simulated intestinal fluid was measured. Food allergens were not necessarily more resistant to digestion than nonallergenic proteins. There was not a clear relationship between digestibility measured in vitro and protein allergenicity. Keywords: Digestive stability; food allergens; simulated gastric fluid; simulated intestinal fluid; allergenicity assessment