Gluten proteins from wheat, rye, barley and, in rare cases, oats, are responsible for triggering hypersensitivity reactions such as celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy. Well-defined reference materials (RM) are essential for clinical studies, diagnostics, elucidation of disease mechanisms and food analyses to ensure the safety of gluten-free foods. Various RM are currently used, but a thorough characterization of the gluten source, content and composition is often missing. However, this characterization is essential due to the complexity and heterogeneity of gluten to avoid ambiguous results caused by differences in the RM used. A comprehensive strategy to isolate gluten protein fractions and gluten protein types (GPT) from wheat, rye, barley and oat flours was developed to obtain well-defined RM for clinical assays and gluten-free compliance testing. All isolated GPT (ω5-gliadins, ω1,2-gliadins, α-gliadins, γ-gliadins and high- and low-molecular-weight glutenin subunits from wheat, ω-secalins, γ-75k-secalins, γ-40k-secalins and high-molecular-weight secalins from rye, C-hordeins, γ-hordeins, B-hordeins and D-hordeins from barley and avenins from oats) were fully characterized using analytical reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), N-terminal sequencing, electrospray-ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-QTOF-MS) and untargeted LC-MS/MS of chymotryptic hydrolyzates of the single GPT. Taken together, the analytical methods confirmed that all GPT were reproducibly isolated in high purity from the flours and were suitable to be used as RM, e.g., for calibration of LC-MS/MS methods or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs).

Coeliac disease (CD) is triggered by the ingestion of gluten proteins from wheat, rye, and barley. The 33-mer peptide from α2-gliadin has frequently been described as the most important CD-immunogenic sequence within gluten. However, from more than 890 published amino acid sequences of α-gliadins, only 19 sequences contain the 33-mer. In order to make a precise assessment of the importance of the 33-mer, it is necessary to elucidate which wheat species and cultivars contain the peptide and at which concentrations. This paper presents the development of a stable isotope dilution assay followed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry to quantitate the 33-mer in flours of 23 hexaploid modern and 15 old common (bread) wheat as well as two spelt cultivars. All flours contained the 33-mer peptide at levels ranging from 91–603 μg/g flour. In contrast, the 33-mer was absent (

Celiac disease (CD) is an inflammatory disorder of the upper small intestine caused by the ingestion of storage proteins (prolamins and glutelins) from wheat, barley, rye, and, in rare cases, oats. CD patients need to follow a gluten-free diet by consuming gluten-free products with gluten contents of less than 20 mg/kg. Currently, the recommended method for the quantitative determination of gluten is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based on the R5 monoclonal antibody. Because the R5 ELISA mostly detects the prolamin fraction of gluten, a new independent method is required to detect prolamins as well as glutelins. This paper presents the development of a method to quantitate 16 wheat marker peptides derived from all wheat gluten protein types by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in the multiple reaction monitoring mode. The quantitation of each marker peptide in the chymotryptic digest of a defined amount of the respective reference wheat protein type resulted in peptide-specific yields. This enabled the conversion of peptide into protein type concentrations. Gluten contents were expressed as sum of all determined protein type concentrations. This new method was applied to quantitate gluten in wheat starches and compared to R5 ELISA and gel-permeation high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (GP-HPLC-FLD), which resulted in a strong correlation between LC-MS/MS and the other two methods.

Celiac disease is triggered by the ingestion of gluten from wheat, barley, rye, and possibly oats. Gluten is quantitated by DNA-based methods or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). ELISAs mostly detect the prolamin fraction and potentially over- or underestimate gluten contents. Therefore, a new independent method is required to comprehensively detect gluten. A targeted liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed to quantitate seven barley, seven rye, and three oat marker peptides derived from each gluten protein fraction (prolamin and glutelin) and type (barley, B-, C-, D-, and γ-hordeins; rye, γ-75k-, γ-40k-, ω-, and HMW-secalins). The quantitation of each marker peptide in the chymotryptic digest of a defined amount of the respective reference gluten protein type resulted in peptide-specific yields, which enabled the conversion of peptide into protein concentrations. This method was applied to quantitate gluten in samples from the brewing process, in raw materials for sourdough fermentation, and in dried sourdoughs.

Certain cereals like wheat, rye or barley contain gluten, a protein mixture that can trigger celiac disease (CD). To make gluten-free diets available for affected individuals the gluten content of foodstuff must be monitored. For this purpose, antibody-based assays exist which rely on the recognition of certain linear gluten sequence motifs. Yet, not all CD-active gluten constituents and fragments formed during food processing/fermentation may be covered by those tests. In this study, we therefore assayed the coverage of reportedly CD-active gluten components by currently available detection antibodies and determined the antibody-inducing capacity of wheat gluten constituents in order to provide novel diagnostic targets for comprehensive gluten quantitation. Immunizations of outbred mice with purified gliadins and glutenins were conducted and the linear target recognition profile of the sera was recorded using synthetic peptide arrays that covered the sequence space of gluten constituents present in those preparations. The resulting murine immunorecognition profile of gluten demonstrated that further linear binding sites beyond those recognized by the monoclonal antibodies α20, R5 and G12 exist and may be exploitable as diagnostic targets. We conclude that the safety of foodstuffs for CD patients can be further improved by complementing current tests with antibodies directed against additional CD-active gluten components. Currently unrepresented linear gluten detection sites in glutenins and α-gliadins suggest sequences and as novel targets for antibody generation.