Celiac disease (CD) is mediated by IgA antibodies to wheat gliadins and tissue transglutaminase (tTG). As tTG is homologous to microbial transglutaminase (mTG) used to improve foodstuff quality, it could elicit the immune response of celiac patients. This study evaluated the reactivity of IgA of celiac patients to prolamins of wheat and gluten-free (maize and rice flours) breads mTG-treated or not. Prolamins extracted from wheat and gluten-free breads were analyzed by ELISA and immunodetected on membranes with individual or pooled sera from nine celiac patients recently diagnosed. Sera pool IgA titers were higher against prolamins of mTG-treated wheat or gluten-free breads than against mTG-untreated, mainly due to two individual patients' sera. The electrophoretic pattern of gluten-free bread prolamins was changed by the mTG treatment, and a new 31000 band originated in maize was recognized by three CD patients' IgA.
The objective of this work was to determine the optimum conditions for the production of extruded flour from hardened chickpeas (Cicer arietinum L). Hardened chickpeas were produced using accelerated storage at 33-35°C and 76% relative humidity for 160 days. Hardened chickpeas were broken, dehulled and softened with a salt solution (2.5 g l À1 NaCl þ 7.5 g l À1 NaHCO 3 in distilled water) prior to extrusion. The single-screw extruder operation conditions were selected from factorial combinations of process variables: extrusion temperature (ET, 130-160°C), feed moisture content (FMC, 200-300 g H 2 O kg À1 , wet basis) and screw velocity (SV,. Response surface methodology was applied as optimisation technique over four response variables: in vitro protein digestibility (PD), total colour difference (DE), water absorption index (WAI) and water solubility index (WSI). Predictive models for response variables were developed as a function of process variables. The conventional graphical method was applied to obtain maximum PD and WAI and minimum DE and WSI. Contour plots of each of the response variables were utilised, applying superposition surface methodology to obtain three contour plots for observation and selection of the best (optimum) combination of ET (150.5°C), FMC (265 g H 2 O kg À1 ) and SV (190.5 rpm) for the production of extruded flour from hardened chickpeas with a single-screw extruder. Extrusion significantly improved the in vitro protein digestibility (21.7%) and protein efficiency ratio (36.9%) of hardened chickpeas.
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