Methods for Determination of Gluten Proteins in Food

Abstract

The prolamin protein fraction from wheat, barley and rye can cause some adverse effects when ingested by people with the coeliac disease. The only treatment of coeliac sprue consists in the adherence to a strict diet free of toxic cereal proteins even in trace amounts. It is one of the most frequent food allergies occurring presumably in one in 300 people in Europe. There is still a need for analytical methods with acceptable reliability and specificity in food control and food analysis of gluten, i.e. prolamins. Electrophoresis and chromatography are widely used for fractionation of a complex mixture of hordeins, but immunochemical techniques are utilized in a very sensitive and specific determination of hordein and its derivatives. A number of ELISA systems have been produced, mainly for the purpose of wheat gliadin detection. The systems are usually based on monoclonal antibodies. The immunochemical analytical systems used for prolamin detection are reviewed.