Re: Gluten breakdown

What a great question!! Gluten has gained an increasingly important role in dietary studies within the past ten years, especially in ragards to how it is (or often isn't) broken down. Hopefully I can provide a detailed enough answer to make things clear.

I. What is Gluten?

Gluten, first discovered in 1775 by the Italian chemist Beccari, is a cohesive elastic protein complex composed of two main protein fractions: gliadin and glutenin. Gliadin is the protein fraction soluble in water and glutenin is the alcohol insoluble protein fraction. A protein is a molecule composed of a sequence of amino acids which form a macromolecule. This macromolecule often has a specific purpose, such as carrying out a catalytic reaction in the case of enzymes or providing structural support in the case of actin. In the case of gluten, the function is thought to be more structural. This protein is found in monocots such as wheat, barley, oats, rye, triticale, and their derivati ves. Gluten is very similar in structure to the phosphoprotein Casein.
The most common use for Gluten today is in the breadmaking industry (Ref 1).

Picture of Gluten

II. How Is Gluten Degraded?

Upon digestion Gluten is broken down into a series of polypeptide fractions through the action of various peptidases (exorphinase, lactase, etc). These peptide fragments can then cross the epithelial cell membrane via active transport and be broken down into single amino acids. Some of these small peptide fragments may not be broken down thereby adversely effecting the Central Nervous System (CNS) and fall into the general category of opiods (also gluteomorphins). These adverse affects are the underlying cause to several disorders such as Autism, Attention Deficit Disorder, Celiacs Disease, etc. There is currently a lot of clinical research being conducted to determine which peptidases de grade gluten most efficiently. Unfortunately I do not have a clear cut answer to this question. There is a product on the market called SerenAid (Ref 2 ) that claims to break down Gluten fairly well in the digestive tract. At the moment, I can not find out specifically what peptidase enzyme is used in this product (this may be by design).

III. How To Test For Gluten Degradation

Testing for the degradation of Gluten is fairly easy with todays technology. Most of this is based on using gluten specific antibodies tested against an individuals blood. Three common tests used to day are gluten specific antibodies (IgA, IgG), reticulin (IgA), and endomysial. There are also *many* other ways to test for the presence and composition/conformation of gluten either in vivo or in vitro.

IV. References

1:Reichelt Kl et al (1991) Brain Dysfunct. 4:308-319.
2:Hole K et al (1979) Neuroscience 4:1883-1893.
3:Drysdale A et al (1982) Neuroscience 7:1567-1574
4:Reichelt KL et al (1990) J Ortomol Med 5:223-239
5:Singh MM and Kay (1976) Science 191:401-402.
6:Vlissides DN et al (1986) Brit J psychiat 148:447-452
7:Wrigley C.C. 1996. Nature 381: 738-739.
http://www.pbi.nrc. ca/bulletin/sept97/intro.html
http://www.serenaid.com/faq.html
http://www.celiac.com/frequent.h tml