Less allergenic wheat line developed
WINNIPEG — Celiac disease affects about 400,000 Canadians.
That’s based on the assumption that one per cent of the population has an extreme auto-immune response to gluten, says Celiac Canada.
People diagnosed with celiac disease have zero tolerance or very low tolerance for bread and baked goods made from wheat.
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However, scientists at the University of California, Davis, have discovered that certain gluten proteins are most responsible for severe reactions in people with celiac disease.
They’ve learned that it’s possible to delete those proteins and still produce a high-quality bread.
“The gluten proteins we eliminated are the ones that trigger the strongest response in people with celiac disease, and their elimination can reduce the risk of triggering the disease in people without celiac disease,” wheat geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky said in a UC Davis release.
There are two types of proteins in gluten: glutenins and gliadins. The latter are the proteins that typically cause the auto-immune response, says UC Davis.
The research team used gamma radiation to delete a group of genes in wheat that produce the gliadin proteins.
It resulted in a line of wheat that’s more acceptable for people with gluten intolerance, said Maria Rottersman, a doctoral student in plant biology at UC Davis.
“Wheat is a staple crop, and many people are reliant on it for calories,” she said.
“It becomes a barrier when people are not able to safely eat wheat. Alpha-gliadins are definitely candidates for removal in terms of trying to create a less allergenic wheat.”
This new wheat isn’t safe for people with celiac disease, but it’s less likely to cause an immune response.
People can develop celiac disease at any point in life because eating gluten may trigger the disease when someone is young or older, says Celiac Canada.
Therefore, a wheat that contains fewer gliadin proteins is less likely to provoke celiac disease.
The UC Davis team also found that the novel wheat produced a high quality flour and bread.
“It was previously assumed that the elimination of gliadins would have a negative effect on breadmaking quality,” Dubcovsky said.
“Our study shows … that we can reduce wheat allergenicity and improve quality at the same time.”
Contact robert.arnason@producer.com
Source: producer.com