High pressure processing does not change allergen structure

Monday, 26 July 2010 09:13

Research lead by scientists from the Structuring Food for Health Programme at the Institute of Food Research, UK, has looked at the effects of high-pressure/temperature treatment and pulsed electric field treatment on the structure of selected allergenic peanut and apple proteins.

The pulsed electric field treatment used in the study did not induce any significant changes in the structure of any of the allergens. In addition, high-pressure/temperature at 20°C did not change the structure of the two peanut proteins Ara h 2, 6 or the apple protein Mal d 3 and resulted in only minor changes in structure of apple protein Mal d 1b. The two peanut proteins were also found to be stable to high pressure processing at 80°C, and while changes were observed for both apple allergens under these conditions, these were attributable to other factors. The group concluded that novel-processing techniques had little effect on purified allergen structure, and it remains to be seen whether these allergens are also stable in a food matrix under similar processing methods.

Reference: Johnson et al. 2010 Molecular Nutrition and Food Research. DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.201000006.