‘AllerML’ devised to improve allergen bioinformatics

Monday, 11 April 2011 12:01

Genetic modification of plants has the potential to introduce allergenic proteins into foods, such that allergenicity and cross-reactivity must be considered during the regulatory approval process for novel food crops. While current guidelines propose the use of bioinformatic screening to assess the allergenic potential of novel food crops, universally-accepted standards for this process are yet to be developed.

‘AllerML’ is a new markup language for allergens that has been devised to assist in the automated exchange of information between databases and in the integration of the bioinformatics tools that are used to investigate allergenicity and cross-reactivity in novel foods. The creators of AllerML believe that general implementation of this new markup language will aid in allergy research and regulatory analysis.

Reference: Ivanciuc et al. 2011. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. DOI:10.1016/j.yrtph.2011.03.006