<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Finally we will soon get free access to taxpayer funded research papers
through a new NIH program... no more $30 fees from Elsevier!  And maybe
there are some ancient wheat species out there that are safe for celiac
consumption.

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NIH Asks for Internet Access to Studies
http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?
type=healthNews&storyID=7532335

NIH Calls on Scientists to Speed Public Release of Research Publications
Online Archive Will Make Articles Accessible to the Public
http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/feb2005/od-03.htm

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Gastroenterology. 2005 Feb;128(2):393-401.

Mapping of gluten T-cell epitopes in the bread wheat ancestors:
Implications for celiac disease.

Molberg O, Uhlen AK, Jensen T, Flaete NS, Fleckenstein B, Arentz-Hansen H,
Raki M, Lundin KE, Sollid LM.

Background & Aims: Celiac disease is a prevalent disorder characterized by
a chronic intestinal inflammation driven by HLA-DQ2 or -DQ8-restricted T
cells specific for ingested wheat gluten peptides. The dominant T-cell
responses are to epitopes that cluster within a stable 33mer fragment
formed by physiologic digestion of distinct alpha-gliadins. Celiac disease
is treated by excluding all gluten proteins from the diet. Conceivably, a
diet based on baking-quality gluten from a wheat species that expresses no
or few T-cell stimulatory gluten peptides should be equally well tolerated
by the celiac patients and, importantly, also be beneficial for disease
prevention. Methods: To identify baking quality, harmless wheat, we
followed the evolution of the wheat back to the species that most likely
have contributed the AA, BB, and DD genomes to the bread wheat. Gluten were
extracted from a large collection of these ancient wheat species and
screened for T-cell stimulatory gluten peptides. Results: Distinct
differences in the intestinal T-cell responses to the diploid species were
identified. Interestingly, we found that the fragments identical or
equivalent to the immunodominant 33mer fragment are encoded by alpha-
gliadin genes on the wheat chromosome 6D and thus absent from gluten of
diploid einkorn (AA) and even certain cultivars of the tetraploid (AABB)
pasta wheat. Conclusions: These findings have implications for celiac
disease because they raise the prospect of identifying or producing by
breeding wheat species with low or absent levels of harmful gluten proteins.

PMID: 15685550 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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