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

2002; American Chemical Society; Volume: 50; Issue: 24 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1021/jf020599h

1520-5118

Tong‐Jen Fu, Upasana R. Abbott, C. Hatzos,

Contact Dermatitis and Allergies

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