| Abstract: | Epitopes on the α‐gliadins are known to give rise to immune responses that may lead to the development of celiac disease in genetically predisposed individuals. The reduction of epitope levels in wheat‐based products would likely benefit this group of consumers and also consumers with non‐celiac gluten sensitivity. Conventional breeding of wheats with lowered epitope levels will take time, but in this study we show for the first time that milling technology can be used to produce flour mill streams that are depleted in α‐20 gliadin epitopes. Fifteen mill streams from two New Zealand wheat cultivars, Sapphire (a biscuit wheat) and Monad (a bread wheat), were tested with reversed‐phase HPLC and an α‐20 gliadin epitope ELISA kit. The level of α‐20 epitope measured in Sapphire gliadins was significantly less than that found in Monad gliadins, even taking into account differences in total protein content. For both cultivars, compared with the straight‐run flour, the break flours had similar or significantly higher proportions of α‐20 epitope per unit of protein, whereas most of the reduction streams had significantly lower proportions of α‐20 epitope per unit of protein. Theoretically, combining selected (mainly reduction) flour streams may produce flour with ∼75% of the epitope content of the straight‐run flour. |
