Tracking Mustard Slurry Allergen Reactivity Through Stove Top Cooking and Enhanced Thermal Treatments Using Sandwich ELISA

• Published in: Food and bioprocess technology 2022-04, Vol.15 (4), p.806-820
• Main Authors: Jawanda, Simran Kaur, Kafrani, Reza Sarhangpour, Ramaswamy, Hosahalli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agriculture; Allergens; Allergies; Biotechnology; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Chemistry/Food Science; Cooking; Denaturation; Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; Food allergies; Food processing; Food Science; Heat treatment; Immunoreactivity; Mustard; Original Research; Protein structure; Proteins; Reduction; Slurries
• ISSN: 1935-5130; 1935-5149
• DOI: 10.1007/s11947-022-02776-6

Thermal treatment is one of the most used methods for the reduction of allergens in foods. Thermal processing brings several changes in protein structure and functionality, and hence renders allergens to be relatively less sensitive. The objective of this study was to track yellow mustard allergens through the mild (stove top cooking) to moderate (commercial thermal processing) and enhanced thermal processing applications using immunoreactivity (IR)-based sandwich ELISA technique. Using 5% mustard slurry as a test sample, stove top cooking at 100 °C was used up to 60 min, while commercially used and enhanced thermal treatments were given at 110 to 120 °C with treatment times between 15 and 120 min. The stove top cooking treatment reduced the allergen IR by 67%, while the commercial and enhanced treatments clearly reduced the allergen IR activity by over 99.9%. In logarithmic scales, this translated to ~0.5 for stove top cooking vs. 3.5 log cycle reductions in allergen IR demonstrating a thousand-time reduction enhancement in thermally processed samples. Conclusively, the residual IR detectable concentration of allergen was brought down from ppm level in control to ppb levels in treated samples. FTIR results illustrated possible changes in mustard protein conformation resulting from possible denaturation and/or unfolding proteins facilitating reduction of allergen sensitivity mustard proteins. While allergen IR reduction was effective, the influence of enhanced thermal treatments on the color and viscosity of test samples was minimal. Therefore, these alternate thermal processing methods were considered to be very promising to bring down the IR of mustard allergens.