Biochemical aspects - Adverse reactions

11 important questions on Biochemical aspects - Adverse reactions

Which 3 strategies are there to avoid allergens?

  • Avoidance
    • Good manufacturing practice
    • Labelling
  • Elimination
    • Separate harmful epitope from matrix
    • Biotechnologically remove epitope
  • Inactivation
    • Destroy harmful epitopes (Heat/Hydrolysis)

What are food allergens?

  • Proteins
    • are present in raw/processed food products
    • 'survive' the processing/storage
    • come into contact with the immune system
  • Allergenic epitopes
    • are stable against heating
    • survive digestion in stomach/intestines

How are proteins folded?

The hydrophobic amino acids 'hide' on the inside. The polar and charged amino acids are more on the edge of the protein.
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What are 2 challenges in allergen detection?

  1. Small amounts are very important, e.g. 20 ppm in gluten
  2. How to detect 'allergens'. Not all proteins are allergens and extraction steps and matrix can hinder assays

Detection methods always have a lower and higher limit, what does this mean? How can you solve this?

  • At low concentrations --> signal is too close to the noise (background)
  • At high concentrations --> signal is outside the range of the detector

Solution: using dilutions so that the sample concentration is within the range of quantification

How can the 'noise' be measured?

By measuring the signal of several 'blank' samples.

How can changes in protein structure be induced?

  • Denaturation/unfolding
    • due to heating
    • due to surfactants (e.g. SDS-PAGE)
  • Enzymatic hydrolysis
  • Chemical modification - Maillard

Heating does not always lead to unfolding. T/F

True, in the case of spray drying it doesn't.

What happens with the denaturation temperature in spray drying?

The water activity decreases during heating. At the same time, the denaturation temperature increases. Many proteins will remain in their native state.

Which enzymes are used for protein hydrolysis?

Proteases, like pepsin, trypsin and chymotrypsin.

How do the enzymes V8 and BLP hydrolyse?

  • V8: one-by-one
  • BLP: as a zipper

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