Peanut Bioinformatics: Tools and Applications for Developing More Effective Immunotherapies for Peanut Allergy and Improving Food Safety

Abstract

Advanced tools of bioinformatics have been employed to assess the features critically required for allergenicity and cross-reactivity. A tremendous accumulation of data on plant proteins in recent years has made it possible to classify allergens in different protein families, with most food allergens grouped into four protein families. These families can be grouped together into superfamilies by comparing sequences and related structures. This information makes it possible to identify a wide range of related proteins that may result in the development of multiple food allergies that initiate the development of cross-reactive antibodies in susceptible individuals. Since peanut allergies are responsible for most episodes of food-induced anaphylaxis, a detailed immunological and molecular characterization of these allergenic components is essential to develop suitable immunotherapies. This would also allow us to screen transgenic plants for the possible development of allergens similar to those allergenic components in peanuts. Homology modeling in combination with residue-wise solvent accessibility of monomers and biological assemblies of allergens certainly gives valuable information about antigenic determinants on protein allergens. Through this review, we discuss the applications of bioinformatics tools toward the mitigation of peanut allergy.

Comparative leaf proteomics of drought-tolerant and -susceptible peanut in response to water stress

“…Proteomics and bioinformatics approaches are increasingly being applied to address biochemical and physiological effects in response to biotic and abiotic stresses in various plants [15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) has been successfully used to discover genetic variation among cultivars [22], post-translational products of various genes in several plant species subjected to a wide range of abiotic stresses such as UV radiation, heavy metals, saline, and drought [23][24][25][26].…”