Development of a Biological Assay to Determine the Allergenic Potential of Foods |
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Authors: | L Vogel T Holzhauser and S Vieths |
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Affiliation: | (1) Dipartimento di Chimica Organica e Industriale, Università di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 17/A, 43100 Parma, Italy; |
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Abstract: | Food allergies represent a risk for many people in industrialized countries. Unrecognizable allergenic proteins of foodstuffs
may be present as ingredients that are not labeled or as unknown cross-contamination. Such hidden allergens can cause severe
reactions in allergics, even at minute quantities, sometimes with fatal outcome. For the verification of the presence of allergenic
food constituents, analytical methods such as ELISA and PCR have been developed. However, these tests cannot measure allergenic
potential. For this reason, a test system that measures the biological activity of allergens has been developed. It is based
on the cellular mechanisms of the type I allergy. Rat basophilic leukemia cells (RBL-2H3) were transfected with the genes
of the human high affinity receptor for IgE. The resulting cell line expressed the human receptor α-chain and could bind allergenspecific
IgE from allergic subjects, in contrast to the parent cell line. After cross-linking of receptor-bound, allergen-specific
human IgE by allergens, the cells released measurable inflammatory mediators. These cells were used for the analysis of a
variety of allergen extracts, including extracts prepared from foods containing allergenic hazelnut and peanut. The comparative
validation with existing ELISA and PCR for hazelnut and peanut demonstrated similar sensitivity and specificity. The established
cell line will be a novel tool in the detection of allergens in complex mixtures, especially to address the issue of their
allergenic potential, which cannot be accomplished by classical analytical methods. This will add valuable information about
the allergenic potential of food constituents to the risk assessment of foods. |
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