How microwave treatment of gluten affects its toxicity for celiac patients? A study on the effect of microwaves on the structure, conformation, functionality and immunogenicity of gluten

Synergistic Effect of Enzyme Hydrolysis and Microwave Reactor Pretreatment as an Efficient Procedure for Gluten Content Reduction

“…Furthermore, the aggregation and loss of protein solubility, rather than the epitope destruction, may be responsible for the observed decrease in gluten immunoreactivity at higher microwave power. Thus, future studies on immunoreactivity of different soluble and insoluble gluten fractions are required to additional understand the mechanisms of the inactivation of gluten toxic epitopes by microwave treatment [ 44 ]. Similar studies have demonstrated that at lower dose of applied energy, the gliadin immunoreactivity increased, reached the maximum value; at higher applied doses (500 W for 2 min), a decrease in gliadin immune response was observed [ 45 ].…”

“…Similarly, Lamacchia et al [ 46 ] reported that the gliadins from treated flours (microwave oven: 1000 W, 2 min of treatment to reach a temperature of 110–120 °C) showed significantly reduced cross-reactivity with the R5 antibody. However, although the microwave pretreatment has been found to lead to gluten secondary structure alterations related to the polymer’s disaggregation phenomenon, the pretreatment inefficiency to detoxify the gluten for celiac disease patients was observed [ 44 ].…”

“…There are many contradictory reports on the influence of microwaves on gluten celiac-related toxicity and there is scientific proof indicating inefficiency of this approach [ 44 , 49 ]. For example, although the microwave treatment of soaked wheat kernels has been documented to decrease the toxic epitope content in gluten with the R5-ELISA assay and also, after deamidation, with in vitro assay on gut-derived T-cell lines of celiac patients [ 48 , 50 ], other works reported that it neither destroyed the gluten nor chemically modified the toxic epitopes [ 44 , 49 ].…”

“…There are many contradictory reports on the influence of microwaves on gluten celiac-related toxicity and there is scientific proof indicating inefficiency of this approach [ 44 , 49 ]. For example, although the microwave treatment of soaked wheat kernels has been documented to decrease the toxic epitope content in gluten with the R5-ELISA assay and also, after deamidation, with in vitro assay on gut-derived T-cell lines of celiac patients [ 48 , 50 ], other works reported that it neither destroyed the gluten nor chemically modified the toxic epitopes [ 44 , 49 ]. Namely, a recent paper by Gianfrani et al [ 49 ] demonstrated that, by LC-MS/MS and by in vitro assay with T-cells of celiac patients, despite the early encouraging results about the drastic reduction in R5-immunoreactivity of the undigested soluble microwave treated gluten fraction, the MWT did not affect immune toxicity of gluten [ 49 ].…”

Microwave technology: a novel approach to the transformation of natural metabolites

“…In addition, protection of polysaccharides, polyphenols, vitamins and other metabolites makes the natural products processed by microwave have better biological activity, such as antioxidant, anti-free radical and antibacterial activities [ 139 ]. However, in the application of microwave in the food field, it has been found that microwave processing may cause starch to produce toxic substances or structural changes to expose more potential toxic sites [ 140 ]. But such situation has not been reported in the field of medicinal materials processing.…”