Alteration of the allergenicity of cow’s milk proteins using different food processing modifications

Abstract

Milk is an essential source of protein for infants and young children. At the same time, cow’s milk is also one of the most common allergenic foods causing food allergies in children. Recently, cow’s milk allergy (CMA) has become a common public health issue worldwide. Modern food processing technologies have been developed to reduce the allergenicity of milk proteins and improve the quality of life of patients with CMA. In this review, we summarize the main allergens in cow’s milk, and introduce the recent findings on CMA responses. Moreover, the reduced effects and underlying mechanisms of different food processing techniques (such as heating, high pressure, γ-ray irradiation, ultrasound irradiation, hydrolysis, glycosylation, etc.) on the allergenicity of cow’s milk proteins, and the application of processed cow’s milk in clinical studies, are discussed. In addition, we describe the changes of nutritional value in cow’s milk treated by different food processing technologies. This review provides an in-depth understanding of the allergenicity reduction of cow’s milk proteins by various food processing techniques.

Keywords:

• Cow’s milk allergy
• epitope
• milk processing technology
• mast cell
• dendritic cell

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Author contributions

Jing Yang: Writing-original draft; Hong Kuang: Writing-original draft; Xiaoli Xiong: Writing-original draft; Ning Li: Resources, Writing-review & editing; Jiajia Song: Supervision, Writing-review & editing. All authors wrote the manuscript and approved its final version.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (Grant No. cstc2021jcyj-msxmX0712; cstc2021jcyj-msxmX0772), Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (Grant No. KJQN201900822; KJQN202100802), Chongqing Technology Foresight and System Innovation Project (Grant No. 2022TFII-OFX0664), Chongqing Engineering Research Center for Processing & Storage of Distinct Agricultural Products (Grant No. KFJJ2019090), Chongqing Technology and Business University (Grant No. 1956024), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. SWU019026), Chongqing Special Project for Technological Innovation and Application Development (cstc2020jscx-msxmx0076), Chongqing Talent Plan Technological Innovation and Application Development (cstc2021ycjh-bgzxm0242), Chongqing Talent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Demonstration Team (CQYC201903189).