Anti nutritional factors in cereals, especially amylase trypsin inhibitors, affecting digestibility.
“Anti nutritional factors (ANF) play an important role in cereals to protect against infestation and animal consumption. From an agronomic point of view these pest barriers are beneficial as the required pest control measures (chemical pesticides, storage facilities) is relatively limited.
From a health point of view a large group of ANF, the ATI are of special interest as they may impact digestion in multiple ways, e.g. they:
• can reduce digestibility of food directly by inhibition of enzymes from the digestive tract (human and microbiome; Weegels 1994),
• can increase the load of allergenic peptide presented to the small intestine, thus increasing the allergenic and inflammation reactions (Junker et al. 2012; Zevallos et al 2014)
• complexation behavior may strongly interact with the small intestine epithelium that can cause inflammation by itself (Zevallos et al 2014)
• are the not yet completely understood cause of Bakers asthma (asma), the major labour related allergy (Stobnicka and Górny, 2015)
• can increase the load of non digested peptides and carbohydrates especially of non-starch polysaccharides (FODMAPS) that are a major cause of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) which affects 7% to 21% of the general population (Chey et al 2015)
• may impact the microbiome itself. This is not established in detail
From a food processing point of view ATI’s play a negative role as they inhibit enzymes that are added as processing aids for improved processing and bread quality. This reduces processing effectiveness and quality control of cereal based products. Understanding the role of ATI in cereals food processing and food digestion and mitigation of the negative effects is therefor of prime importance for food safety, security (1) and sustainability. An interesting way to mitigate the effect of ATI could be by altering its molecular structure that is stabilised by the large number of disulphide bonds (5-6 on ca. 14 kDa; Buchanan et al 1997)”. “https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Chair-groups/Agrotechnology-and-Food-Sciences/Laboratory-of-Food-Chemistry/Research/Themes/Technology-of-cereal-foods-digestibility.htm”
Note
(1). “food security” and “food safety”can be considered as the sides of the same coin, two complementary terms that indicate, respectively, the economic and social security of having enough food to live (“food security”) and the hygienic-sanitary need to consume healthy food and water drinking (“food safety”).
ATI (Amylase/trypsin-inhibitors) First part
Abstract
Amylase/trypsin-inhibitors (ATIs) are putative triggers of non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), but contents of ATIs in different wheat species were not available. Therefore, the predominant ATIs 0.19+0.53, 0.28, CM2, CM3 and CM16 in eight cultivars each of common wheat, durum wheat, spelt, emmer and einkorn grown under the same environmental conditions were quantitated by targeted liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and stable isotope dilution assays (SIDA) using specific marker peptides as internal standards. The results were compared to a label-free untargeted LC-MS/MS analysis, in which protein concentrations were determined by intensity based absolute quantitation (iBAQ). Both approaches yielded similar results. Spelt and emmer had higher ATI contents than common wheat, with durum wheat in between. Only three of eight einkorn cultivars contained ATIs in very low concentrations. The distribution of ATI types was characteristic for hexaploid, tetraploid and diploid wheat species and suitable as species-specific fingerprint. The results point to a better tolerability of einkorn for NCGS patients, because of very low total ATI contents. Targeted LC-MS/MS Reveals Similar Contents of α-Amylase/Trypsin-Inhibitors as Putative Triggers of Nonceliac Gluten Sensitivity in All Wheat Species except Einkorn.
Article in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 66(46) · October 2018. Sabrina Geisslitz, Christina Ludwing, Katharina Scherf (Technische Universität München Munich, Bayern, Germany).