Cross-reactivity of IgEs from wheat allergic patients with emerging cereal and pseudocereal proteins

Cereals have always constituted the main food for most of the world's population, providing approximately half of the world's supply of human dietary nutrients.Nevertheless, cereal grains are still recognized as one of the principal food causing adverse reaction in sensitized subjects.In the last decade, implementation of emerging cereals (grass species) and pseudocereals (non-grass species) in the diet is an answer to the enhancement of allergic disorders but also the decision to adopt new healthy life styles. The aim of this work was to provide preliminary results on the cross-reactivity of IgEfrom patients allergic to one or more cereals or pseudocerealsversusother commonly consumed cerealsand pseudocereals. A protocol for protein extraction was set upstarting from five cereals (barley, corn, millet, brown rice and TEFF) and three pseudocereals (quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat) considering both seeds and flours. SDS-PAGE was performed and the resulting electrophoretic profiles have showed strong similarity between seeds and flours for all cereals andpseudocereals, however differences of protein profiles were observed under reducing and non-reducing conditions. The immunoreactivity of patient sera allergic to wheat, buckwheat, brown rice, corn and barley was evaluated by immunoblotting against protein extracts from cereals and pseudocereals positives to pre-screening performed by dot-blot. Immunoreactive bands will be identified by LC-MS/MS in order to find out both allergens related to a single cereal/pseudocereal and allergens responsible for cross-reactivity between cereals and psudocereals.