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The epitopes in wheat proteins for defining toxic units relevant to human health

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Abstract

Wheat-related disorders are well-studied health problems. Knowledge of the composition and amounts of epitopes present in a single wheat sample represents a significant gap, and the detailed wheat proteome datasets now available can provide the necessary information to carry out an estimation of allergen prediction for a single cultivar. The combined use of genome sequence and allergen databases, prediction methodology, and cereal chemistry results in better understanding of the level of toxicity present in the end-products produced from wheat flour. The workflow presented in this review provides information about the number and distribution of epitopes at single protein, or protein fraction, levels. In addition, epitopes present in the highest frequency and harmful proteins expressed in the highest amount can be identified. The “epitope toxicity” value obtained in this way is a significant research output from the analysis of large datasets that can be applied to the food industry.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Professor Rudi Appels for the motivating discussions and suggestions during the analyses and the preparation of the manuscript. The Project is supported by the European Union and co-financed by the European Social Fund (grant agreement no. TÁMOP-4.2.2.A-11/1/KONV-2012-0008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Genomics Department, Agricultural Institute, Centre for Agricultural Research, HAS, Martonvásár, Hungary

    Angéla Juhász, Gyöngyvér Gell & Ervin Balázs

  2. FBFD PTY LTD, Beecroft, NSW, Australia, 2119

    Frank Békés

Authors
  1. Angéla Juhász
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  2. Gyöngyvér Gell
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  3. Frank Békés
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  4. Ervin Balázs
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Angéla Juhász.

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Supplementary Table 1

Epitope lists used in the analyses are presented as IEDB_CD epitopes, IEDB_WA epitopes; core epitopes based on Sollid et al. 2012; predicted T cell epitopes using both Butte86 and Recital protein sets (XLSX 49 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Protein IDs used in the present analyses and their corresponding protein IDs including spot numbers as presented in the papers of Dupont et al. (2011) and Tasleem-Tahir et al. (2012) (XLSX 17 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

Distribution of different epitope sets in Butte 86 and Recital databases. CD epitope subtypes containing tTG sites and core epitopes are also represented in separate columns, both for digested and undigested protein sets (XLSX 18 kb)

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Juhász, A., Gell, G., Békés, F. et al. The epitopes in wheat proteins for defining toxic units relevant to human health. Funct Integr Genomics 12, 585–598 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10142-012-0302-3

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