Gluten Detection Methods and Their Critical Role in Assuring Safe Diets for Celiac Patients

Abstract

Celiac disease, wheat sensitivity, and allergy represent three different reactions, which may occur in genetically predisposed individuals on the ingestion of wheat and derived products with various manifestations. Improvements in the disease diagnostics and understanding of disease etiology unveiled that these disorders are widespread around the globe affecting about 7% of the population. The only known treatment so far is a life-long gluten-free diet, which is almost impossible to follow because of the contamination of allegedly “gluten-free” products. Accidental contamination of inherently gluten-free products could take place at any level from field to shelf because of the ubiquity of these proteins/grains. Gluten contamination of allegedly “gluten-free” products is a constant threat to celiac patients and a major health concern. Several detection procedures have been proposed to determine the level of contamination in products for celiac patients. The present article aims to review the advantages and disadvantages of different gluten detection methods, with emphasis on the recent technology that allows identification of the immunogenic-gluten peptides without the use of antibodies. The possibility to detect gluten contamination by different approaches with similar or better detection efficiency in different raw and processed foods will guarantee the safety of the foods for celiac patients.

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“…As in other countries and given these results, the main concern is the marketing of food products that are GF-labeled, without the necessary tests and certification. This is especially important when the products have natural GF grains as ingredients and are assumed to be safe (12). The only commercially available test approved by the Codex Alimentarius is the ELISA R5 test, which was used in this study.…”

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“…The best technique for identifying gluten-related issues is to remove gluten from the diet and check it for health effects in clinical practice [ 174 ]. With this gluten-related practice, athletes often self-diagnose that they have gluten-related disorders, resulting in gluten being excluded from the diet [ 129 ].…”

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“…A common method is using the sandwich ELISA test kit based on R5 and Skerrit antibodies. However, this method has some disadvantages: it cannot identify the source of gluten-whether it is from wheat, rye, or barley; it takes a long time (between 30 min and 2.5 h depending on the manufacturer); it has difficulties in testing the heat-processed food samples (especially glutenin) [11,12]. R5 sandwich ELISA cannot be applied for hydrolyzed protein products, so R5 competitive ELISA, ELISA G12, and mass spectrometry was developed for hydrolyzed food [7].…”

“…Given these problems, other different methods were developed. One method is a genomic method-PCR (polymerase chain reaction) using specific DNA sequences [12,13]. A double PCR system was developed with DNA isolated from different cereals.…”

“…DNA samples only are screened for wheat genomic DNA when the tested sample has proved positive for the first test [13]. It is much more sensitive compared to ELISA and can distinguish the source of gluten or cereal proteins but cannot be applied to the hydrolyzed proteins either [11,12]. Moreover, non-immunological matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was applied for gluten detection with high sensitivity but with high costs and specialized equipment.…”