Celiac disease-specific prolamin peptide content of wheat relatives and wild species determined by ELISA assays and bioinformatics analyses

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) are widely used to determine gluten contamination in gluten-free and low gluten food samples. ELISA assays developed using monoclonal antibodies against known toxic peptides have an advantage in the identification of toxic prolamin content in protein extracts of different food samples, as well as raw materials. R5 and G12 monoclonal antibodies specific for two known toxic peptides used in commercially available gluten ELISA assays were applied to test toxic peptide contents in wheat relatives and wild wheat species with different genome composition and complexity. Although the R5 peptide content showed some correlation with ploidy levels in Triticum species, there was a high variance among Aegilops species. Some of the analysed diploid Aegilops species showed extremely high R5 peptide contents. Based on the bioinformatics analyses, the R5 peptide was present in most of the sulphur rich prolamins in all the analysed species, whereas the G12 epitope was exclusively present in alpha gliadins. High variation was detected in the position and frequency of epitopes in sequences originating from the same species, thus highlighting the importance of genotypic variation within species. Identification of new prolamin alleles of wheat relatives and wild wheat species is of great importance in order to find germplasm for special end-use quality purposes as well as development of food with reduced toxicity

Towards breeding less allergenic spelt-wheat with low fodmap content — A review

Consumption of “gluten-containing” diet causes disease for a significant minority of people who consume foods derived from wheat, rye, barley, and possibly oat. The fact is, however, that in several types of diseases related to the consumption of “gluten-containing” cereals, the trigger compounds are not components of gluten. The current view of medical experts is that, excluding people suffering from celiac disease, the majority of individuals who are feeling better on the “wheat-free” or “gluten-free” diet could select a food containing much healthier, low level of fermentable oligosaccharides (often called as FODMAP). To satisfy the specific health related demands of certain consumer groups, the challenge is in front of cereal breeding to develop new, “healthier” germplasms, suitable to produce such products by the food industry. This report aims to give an overview of some aspects of recent developments in this booming area, (i) summarizing the up-to-date knowledge on cereals-related health disorders; (ii) reporting on the status of developing celiac-safe cereals, and finally (iii) highlighting the potential of developing “healthier” spelt-based cereal products through the progress in an ongoing spelt breeding program

Brachypodium distachyon as a model for defining the allergen potential of non-prolamin proteins

Epitope databases and the protein sequences of published plant genomes are suitable to identify some of the proteins causing food allergies and sensitivities. Brachypodium distachyon, a diploid wild grass with a sequenced genome and low prolamin content, is the closest relative of the allergen cereals, such as wheat or barley. Using the Brachypodium genome sequence, a workflow has been developed to identify potentially harmful proteins which may cause either celiac disease or wheat allergy-related symptoms. Seed tissue-specific expression of the potential allergens has been determined, and intact epitopes following an in silico digestion with several endopeptidases have been identified. Molecular function of allergen proteins has been evaluated using Gene Ontology terms. Biologically overrepresented proteins and potentially allergen protein families have been identified. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10142-012-0294-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Measurement of cross sections and leptonic forward-backward asymmetries at the Z pole and determination of electroweak parameters

We report on the measurement of the leptonic and hadronic cross sections and leptonic forward-backward asymmetries at the Z peak with the L3 detector at LEP. The total luminosity of 40.8 pb −1 collected in the years 1990, 1991 and 1992 corresponds to 1.09·10 6 hadronic and 0.98·10 5 leptonic Z decays observed. These data allow us to determine the electroweak parameters. From the cross sections we derive the properties of the Z boson: assuming lepton universality. We obtain an invisible width of Γ inv =496.5±7.9 MeV which, in the Standard Model, corresponds to a number of light neutrino species of N v =2.981±0.050.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47894/1/10052_2005_Article_BF01574160.pd