Research actions through current costs grants following the call for proposals (EDF-2022-RA)
6 July 2022ERC Starting Grants
13 July 2022Several groups of scientists, led by the head of Allergology at the Carlos Colás Clinic, are investigating the potential degradation of LTP proteins, the main cause of the most severe reactions.
Fresh fruits, and especially those from the Rosaceae family, cause almost 45% of all food allergies in Spain
A joint project in which several groups from the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón) are working has demonstrated the effectiveness of a treatment to reduce the allergenicity of peaches and apples that could be applied in the food industry to obtain novel and differentiated products. , that offer specific nutritional solutions for the population allergic to rosacea fruits and that are supported by a scientific basis that demonstrates their safety and effectiveness in the population to which they are directed. These new products would be the first hypoallergenic fruit-based foods on the current market and it would be of great interest to know if they could also have a potential application to induce oral tolerance to rosacea fruits.
The multidisciplinary project 'Application of enzymatic treatments to reduce the allergenicity of LTP', whose main researcher is Carlos Colás - head of Allergology at the Lozano Blesa University Clinical Hospital -, aims to investigate the potential degradation of LTP proteins (Lipid Transfer Proteins). ) peach and apple using enzymatic processing treatments. These proteins present in fruits are characterized by high stability against industrial processing and digestion, which is why they are the main causes of serious systemic reactions that cause anaphylactic shock.
"We have tested a wide range of proteolytic enzymes from different origins and under different conditions and we have observed that one of them is capable of efficiently degrading LTP proteins to very small fragments and reducing their allergenicity when tested in allergic patients using intraepidermal skin tests and serological tests,” explains Dolores Pérez, researcher at IIS Aragón and IA2 and professor in the area of Food Technology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. “It remains to be determined whether degraded LTP also shows the ability to reduce allergenicity in cellular studies and in vivo studies with animal models,” she adds.
Allergens
Fresh fruits are the most frequent cause of food allergies in the Spanish population, with 44,7% of the total, and their prevalence has increased significantly in the last decade, according to the Spanish Society of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (SEAIC). . Of all the fruits, the Rosaceae family (peach, apricot and apple, among others) are the main causes and, however, they are not included in the mandatory labeling of the European directive, Pérez highlights. “There is a lot of potential for technological transfer to the food industry because new products could maintain their flavor and nutritional characteristics, but we need the sector to get involved to complete this progress,” Pérez highlights.
Scientists from the IIS Aragón groups 'Allergy', 'Immunity, cancer and diseases of infectious origin or molecular basis' and 'Mycobacterial genetics' participate in this project. Thus, on behalf of the Allergology area of the Lozano Blesa University Clinical Hospital in Zaragoza, Carlos Colás Sanz, José Luis Cubero Saldaña and Ana Agulló García, in addition to the nurses Esther Carbajo Martínez and Sofía Victoria Lozano Andaluz; and on behalf of the University of Zaragoza, Mª Dolores Pérez Cabrejas, Lourdes Sánchez Paniagua, Ana Pilar Tobajas de la Fuente and Alba Civera Casedas, from the Food Technology Area; Alberto Anel Bernal and Deisy Arce Recalde from the area of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; and Nacho Aguiló Anento and Silvia Calvo García from the Microbiology area.