The Reactivity and Allergenic Potential of Hazelnut Peptides

Abstract. The aim of this paper was to focus on proteins present in some food products, like hazelnuts and to investigate their allergenic potential. Several techniques were used to characterize these extracted proteins, with respect to their composition, degradability by digestive proteolytic enzymes and their reactivity with specific antibodies. It was important to analyse which proteins were present in the hazelnuts, to see if there were proteins present to trigger an allergic reaction and if the digestion enzymes trypsin and pepsin influence the presence of the (allergic) protein compounds. Allergies to tree nuts and seeds can cause life-threatening and sometimes fatal reactions. To examine the properties of Hazelnut protein it was important to solubilize it by extraction. After extraction, it was investigated how hazelnut protein can be modified by proteases and what the effect was on the immune reaction. The Bradford method is a fast and sensitive method to determine the concentration of soluble protein. When the Bradford reagent (Coomassie Brilliant Blue) binds to the protein, the colour changes from red to purple and the absorption maximum changes from 495 to 595 nm. The value obtained as the final concentration of proteins was 7.3495. SDS-PAGE is a method to separate mixtures of proteins by electrophoresis. Protei