Adult and infant protein digestion models in food allergy

Monday, 21 December 2009 14:40

IgE-mediated food allergy may be connected to an incomplete digestion of dietary proteins in the gut. In order to study this, a biochemical model of infant digestion has been developed, with reduced levels of protease, phosphatidylcholine and bile salts, compared with an adult model. These models have been used to study the behaviour of three well-characterised food-relevant proteins which are relevant cow's milk and hen's egg allergens.

Characterisation of the digestion products of these proteins was carried out using electrophoresis, immunochemical techniques and mass spectrophotometry. Results showed that ovalbumin and beta-casein were digested more slowly using the infant model compared with the adult conditions, with resistant fragments of beta-casein found in the infant model. The researchers were surprised to find beta-lactoglobulin was more extensively degraded in the infant model compared with the adult one.

Reference: Dupont D et al. 2009. Molecular Nutrition & Food Research. Doi: 10.1002/mnfr.200900142