**9. Milk**

**6. Application of gamma irradiation for inhibition of food allergy**

irradiation technology can be applied to reduce allergenicity of allergic foods.

**7. Effect of irradiation on allergenicity of different food products**

the shelf-life. As side effect, this technology influences the food allergenicity.

Gamma irradiation caused protein misfolding and aggregation.

of different food products thematic has been subsequently listed.

tional epitope), was lost, but some antigenicity persisted.

specific antibodies.

146 Allergen

**8. Eggs**

modification of antibody-binding epitopes in food antigens/allergens.

According to Byun et al. [16], the amount of intact allergens in an irradiated solution can be reduced by gamma irradiation depending upon the dose. This situation occurs because that in the epitopes on the allergens can be structurally altered by radiation treatment and that the

Kume et al. [6] observed the structural modification of food proteins by radiation, and these results have indicated that ionizing radiation could change antigenicity by the destruction or

Food irradiation objective is the inactivation of microorganisms and through this to prolong

The process of irradiating proteins with high dose besides inactivation of microorganisms induced the production of protein aggregates and degraded fragments with reactivity to the

One example is the research that Vaz et al. [22] conducted. Studies on *Sebastiania jacobinensis* bark lectin found that high doses of gamma irradiation (above 1 kGy) induced a significant loss of activity of this protein. There were apparent changes in the hydrophobic surface.

After these reports, other research developed within the effect of irradiation on allergenicity

For egg proteins, Lee et al. (2005) produced cakes containing layer of egg white that were gamma-irradiated with 10 or 20kGy in study promoted by them. The ovalbumin present decreased its allergenicity by irradiation and processing. Egg white irradiated for reducing the egg allergy could be used for producing a safer cake [23]. And then, Lee et al. [24] treated hen egg ovomucoid at basic pH irradiated at 10 kGy, heated at 100°C for 15 min, or both treatments were applied. The combination of irradiation and heating was very effective in reducing the amount of intact ovomucoid regardless of the pH condition. For Kume and Matsuda [7], the principle of the effect can be demonstrated in case of ovalbumin and bovine serum albumin in solution (0.2% in 0.01 M phosphate buffer, pH 7.4). These proteins were irradiated with a high dose of the order of 8 kGy (units for intensity characterization of ionization by gamma irradiation). This process besides inactivation of microorganisms induced the production of protein aggregates and degraded fragments with reactivity to the specific antibodies. The main part of conformation-dependent reactivity, spatial antigenic structure (conformaMilk proteins allergen was studied by Lee et al. [26] who found that bovine alpha-casein and beta-lactoglobulin when irradiated changed their allergenicity and antigenicity. Probably, agglomeration of proteins was caused by the treatment.

In their study, Lee et al. [26] executed to assess the application of food irradiation technology as a way for decreasing milk allergies. In this scientific study, bovine alpha-casein and betalactoglobulin were used as milk proteins. The application of milk-hypersensitive patients' immunoglobulin E and rabbit IgGs individually made to bovine alpha-casein and beta-lactoglobulin, the shift of allergenicity and antigenicity of irradiated proteins was noted by competitive oblique enzyme-linked immunosorbent test.

For the authors, allergenicity and antigenicity of the irradiated proteins were modified unlike sides of the inhibition curves. The vanishing of the band on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and the rise of the turbidity demonstrated that solubility of the proteins decreased by radiation, and it might be caused by agglomeration of the proteins. These results showed that epitopes on milk allergens were structurally changed by gamma irradiation.
