Background

According to EU legislation, genetically modified plants (GM plants) should follow a scientific assessment of any risk that they may pose to human and animal health, including an allergenicity assessment. According to the EFSA guidance1, the allergenicity assessment of GM plants is structured into the assessment of i) the newly expressed proteins and ii) the whole GM plant. For the latter and as a part of the assessment, if the GM plant receiving the introduced gene(s) is known to be allergenic, its endogen-ous allergenicity is compared with that of its non-GM comparator(s). Methods Historically, the assessment of endogenous allergenicity has been performed by analytical methodologies based on the use of human sera. Currently, new analytica