Sesame as a source of food allergens: clinical relevance, molecular characterization, cross-reactivity, stability toward processing and detection strategies

Abstract

Sesame is an allergenic food with an increasing allergy prevalence among the European/USA population. Sesame allergy is generally life-persisting, being the cause of severe/systemic adverse immune responses in sesame-allergic individuals. Herein, clinical data about sesame allergy, including prevalence, diagnosis, relevance, and treatments are described, with focus on the molecular characterization of sesame allergens, their cross-reactivity and co-sensitization phenomena. The influence of food processing and digestibility on the stability/immunoreactivity of sesame allergens is critically discussed and the analytical approaches available for their detection in foodstuffs. Cross-reactivity between sesame and tree nuts or peanuts is frequent because of the high similarities among proteins of the same family. However, cross-reactivity phenomena are not always correlated with true clinical allergy in sensitized patients. Data suggest that sesame allergens are resistant to heat treatments and digestibility, with little effect on their immunoreactivity. Nevertheless, data are scarce, evidencing the need for more research to understand the effect of food processing on sesame allergenicity modulation. The demands for identifying trace amounts of sesame in foods have prompted the development of analytical methods, which have targeted both protein and DNA markers, providing reliable, specific, and sensitive tools, crucial for the effective management of sesame as an allergenic food.

Keywords:

• Sesame
• sesame allergy
• clinical relevance
• cross-reactivity
• food processing
• detection methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the European Union (EU) through European Regional Development Fund (FEDER funds through NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000052), national funds (FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) through project HYPOALLERGEN (PTDC/BAA-AGR/4005/2021), and the strategic funding of UIDB/50006/2020|UIDP/50006/2020 from FCT/MCTES. C. Villa thanks FCT for funding the researcher contract through project HYPOALLERGEN (PTDC/BAA-AGR/4005/2021). This work was also supported by project SYSTEMIC under the ERA-NET ERA-HDHL (n° 696295). J. Costa and I. Mafra thank FCT for funding through the Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus (2021.03583.CEECIND/CP1662/CT0012 and 2021.03670.CEECIND/CP1662/CT0011, respectively).