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Egg is one of the major food allergens that affects 1.6~3.2% of the infants and young children population. The objective of this study is to reduce the egg white IgE binding ability by lactobacilli or Aspergillus oryzae fermentation. Modifications of egg white proteins during fermentation were analyzed by Ninhydrin method, Ellman method, SDS-PAGE, ELISA, and MALDI-TOF-MS. Tryptone supplementation and acidification are necessary to grow lactobacilli in egg white. Egg whites were fermented by L sanfranciscensis, L. sakei, and L. delbrueckii subsp. delbrueckii individually for 96 h; and Aspergillus oryzae for 120 h. The IgE binding ability of egg white was significantly reduced (~50%) by L. delbrueckii subsp. delbrueckii after 48 h of incubation and almost eliminated by Aspergillus oryzae after 24 h of inoculation. In addition to slight modification of ovomucoid (the dominant egg allergen), no substantial protein degradation was observed during fermentation. / Food Science and Technology

Milk is one of the eight major food allergens. Cow's milk allergy is the most common allergy in children under 2 years of age. About 1.6 to 2.8 percent of children under this age are reported to have cow's milk allergy. Casein, β-lactoglobulin and α-lactalbumin are major milk protein allergens. Nonthermal treatments like high intensity ultrasound, ultraviolet (UV) light and nonthermal plasma treatments have been reported in the literature to be effective in reducing the allergenicity of different food proteins. Hence it was expected for these treatments to reduce cow milk allergenicity. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of high intensity ultrasound, nonthermal atmospheric plasma and UV-C light treatments in reducing the allergenicity of isolated major milk proteins. Sonics Vibracell VC 505 ultrasonic liquid processor was used to perform high intensity ultrasound treatments. UV light treatments were performed using a DDK Scientific Corporation UV tunnel. A nonthermal atmospheric plasma setup assembled in Department of Microbiology lab was used to perform plasma treatments. Samples were analyzed using sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) to estimate the change in protein concentration and enzyme linked immuno sorbent assays (ELISA) to observe the change in IgE binding. A one-way analysis of variance was conducted to evaluate the relationship between treatment time and percent IgE binding at 95% confidence level. Further investigation was conducted with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy on treated casein to assess any change in the structure of protein. SDS-PAGE results for ultrasound and plasma treatments didn't show any change in gel band intensities for casein, β-lactoglobulin and α-lactalbumin indicating no significant change in protein concentration. Ci-ELISA analysis showed that there was no significant difference (p>0.05) in IgE binding values for control and treated samples in ultrasound and plasma treatment conditions tested in this study. The intensities of all the three protein bands in SDS-PAGE gel were reduced by UV-C light treatment at 15 min treatment time. In Ci-ELISA, there was a significant difference (p< 0.05) in IgE binding values for control and treated samples and a reduction in allergenicity of proteins (25% reduction for casein and 28% reduction for whey protein fractions) was observed. Further investigations using in vivo clinical trials need to be conducted to confirm this result. NMR results didn't show any noticeable changes in the structures of casein with all three different treatments. In conclusion, UV-C light treatment can reduce the allergenicity of isolated major milk proteins to some extent. High intensity ultrasound and nonthermal atmospheric plasma treatments failed to generate effective results for reducing allergenicity at the conditions tested in this study. Higher intensity and longer treatment conditions might yield better results with ultrasound treatment. Different power and gas flow rates used to generate plasma with direct exposure of proteins might yield better results towards reducing the allergenicity of major milk allergens.

Peanut, a major allergenic food, has life-threatening potential and is difficult to be totally avoided due to its common use in processed foods. Thermal processing can influence the allergenic properties of peanuts. However, the kinetics of the reactions caused by thermal processing has not been characterized. In our study, kinetics of the commonly used thermal processing methods on a commercial peanut cultivar (Virginia) using five time intervals was conducted. Water-soluble and SDS-sample buffer soluble proteins were extracted sequentially, and analyzed by sodium-dodecyl-sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and western-blot using human plasma containing IgE antibodies. The relationships between thermal processing (time) and log transformed water-soluble/total extractable major allergen content could be explained by a simple linear regression kinetic model for most of the processing methods (except high-pressure steaming). Among all the methods with optimal processing point, frying for 6 min had relatively lower IgE binding (linear epitopes) ratio may be due to the fact that this processing condition causing break down, cross-linking and aggregation of Ara h 2, and relatively lower solubility. Besides thermal processing, enzymatic processing also is considered to be an effective method in the allergenicity of peanuts. Eleven peanut lines (Coded MS-1~MS-11, MS-9 is the check and a common cultivar namely Valencia) were pre-screened from 122 peanut lines harvested in 2015 for allergen levels. These pre-screened lines were re-planted in 2016 for further analysis. One line, MS-7, was selected for lower Ara h 1 (8.5-9.5% of total protein) and Ara h 2 (4.2-6.6% of total protein) content in 2015 and 2016. Roasted MS-9 (check) peanut powders were used for enzymatic treatment for enzyme selection. A first order kinetic reaction model was conducted to describe the relationship between enzyme concentration (0-400AzU/g) and IgE-binding property reduction. Among eight food-grade enzymes, bromelain, papain and ficin hydrolysates had lower IgE-binding properties in terms of high IgE-binding property reducing rate (K, ≥ 0.4) and were selected for the following study. MS-7 (selected) & MS-9 (at level of 200AzU/g) hydrolyzed by three selected enzymes (200AzU/g) were used for IgE binding property comparison, TGase crosslinking and functional properties study. After hydrolyzed by the selected enzymes (200 AzU/g), the emulsion and foaming stabilities were decreased. Emulsion and foaming stabilities were increased in TGase (5U/g protein) crosslinked hydrolysates, which were even higher than soy protein isolate (SPI). The IgE-binding properties of TGase treated hydrolysates were similar to the hydrolysates without TGase treatment. MS-7 hydrolysates (with/without TGase) possessed less IgE-binding properties and similar functionality as compared with MS-9 hydrolysates.