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Original Articles

Conformation affects the potential allergenicity of ovalbumin after heating and glycation

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Pages 1684-1692 | Received 22 Mar 2013, Accepted 30 Jun 2013, Published online: 06 Aug 2013
 

Abstract

Ovalbumin (OVA), one of the major allergens in hen egg white, and has widespread use in experimental models of allergy. The aim of this research was to assess the effect of glycation and heat treatment on the potential allergenicity of OVA prepared from hen egg white. Secondary and tertiary structures of OVA were also characterised to show the relationship between potential allergenicity and the conformation of OVA after heating and glycation. Glycation significantly reduced the potential allergenicity of OVA tested with egg allergy patients’ sera, which was caused by conformation changes. An increased IgG reactivity was measured using rabbit anti-OVA and was supposed to be caused by protein unfolding which exposed hidden epitopes. Heating reduced the potential allergenicity of OVA at the expense of increased IgG reactivity. It is suggested that conformational changes of OVA induced by glycation and controlled heating significantly reduced its potential allergenicity.

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China (Number 2013DFG31380), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program; Number 2013AA102205), the National Science and Technology Support Project, China (Numbers 2012BAK17B02 and 2011BAK10B03), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Number 31060215), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (Number 20113601110003), and the Research Program of State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology (Numbers SKLF-ZZA-201302 and SKLF-ZZB-201302).

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