How does a celiac iceberg really float? The relationship between celiac disease and gluten

Abstract

Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune intestinal disease caused by intolerance of genetically susceptible individuals after intake of gluten-containing grains (including wheat, barley, etc.) and their products. Currently, CD, with “iceberg” characteristics, affects a large population and is distributed over a wide range of individuals. This present review summarizes the latest research progress on the relationship between CD and gluten. Furthermore, the structure and function of gluten peptides related to CD, gluten detection methods, the effects of processing on gluten and gluten-free diets are emphatically reviewed. In addition, the current limitations in CD research are also discussed. The present work facilitates a comprehensive understanding of CD as well as gluten, which can provide a theoretical reference for future research.

Keywords:

• Celiac disease
• gluten
• gut microbiota
• food processing
• gluten-free diet

Author contributions

Xiaoxue Zhu: Visualization, Writing - original draft. Na Zhang: Supervision, Resource. Rotimi E. Aluko: Writing, Reviewing and Editing. Olugbenga P. Soladoye: Writing, Reviewing and Editing. Xin-Huai Zhao: Writing, Reviewing and Editing. Qiang Zhang: Writing, Reviewing and Editing. Yuhao Zhang: Writing, Reviewing, Resource. Yu Fu: Conceptualization, Resources, Funding acquisition, Guidance, Writing. All the authors read and approved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32101980), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU019009) and Innovation Program for Chongqing’s Overseas Returnees (cx2019072).