The cockroach allergen‐like protein is involved in primary respiratory and food allergy to yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor)

Abstract

Insects have been proposed as a high quality, efficient and sustainable alternative protein source for humans and animals, and a vast selection of edible products is currently available in many European countries. However, respiratory allergy among professional and domestic breeders and food allergy among consumers are known. 1,2We here report the case of 2 patients (Pt#1 and Pt#2, both male, 24 and 27 years old, respectively) employed in the production of insect flour made of yellow mealworm larvae (Tenebrio molitor larvae, TML) and black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens larvae, HIL).The patients did not show the previous history of food or respiratory allergies. In the same factory, a total of ten workers handled TML, eight out of ten without developing any symptom. The first symptoms of the 2 patients (rhinoconjunctivitis, itching and contact erythema) appeared after some weeks of repetitive exposure to TML. They did not report any symptoms when exposed to HIL.The symptoms were particularly severe during the sifting of TML from their faeces (TMF), and when the patients entered the rearing room after the sifting operation, they disappeared after 24 hours.The sensitization therefore presumably occurred through a percutaneous route and/or by inhalation. After developing symptoms, Pt#1 continued to work using adequate protection devices, while Pt#2 left the job. The 2 patients were used to eat such edible insects as the greater wax moth, crickets and HI. They experienced an oral allergy syndrome (OAS) characterized by oral pruritus and tightness in the throat, as soon as they start eating for the first time a TML hamburger. Symptoms recovered spontaneously in about 40 minutes. Following this episode, they continued to tolerate other edible insects, but never tried to taste TML again and refused to undergo provocation test.In order to characterize the patients' allergic profile, we performed: skin prick tests (SPTs) with a standard battery of inhalant and food allergens, specific IgE for TM, Der p10, Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, Dermatophagoides farinae and Prawn (ImmunoCap Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc) and basophil activation test (BAT) with TML and TMF protein extracts. Immunoblot analyses of both protein extracts and LC-MS/MS analysis followed by protein database screening were performed in order to identify the allergens involved in the TM sensitization (see Appendix S1).The SPTs with inhalant and food allergens were negative in both patients, except for Grass in Pt#1 and Alternaria in Pt#2. Specific TM IgEs were present in both patients (21.00 and 10.63 kU A /L, respectively), while no specific IgEs were found for house dust mites, Prawn and Der p10. BAT were positive in both subjects for TMF and TML (Figure 1).Immunoblotting showed a 15 kDa reactive band in both the TML and TMF extracts, when incubated with both patients' sera ( Figure 2, panel A). Three additional aspecific bands were also detected in the healthy control patients' serum pool, but only in the TML extract ( Figure 2). The cockroach all...

Edible insects and food safety: allergy

“…A total of 20 articles were included in this systematic review -19 obtained through database research and 1 (Jiang et al, 2016) obtained through screening of the references of included studies (although it was published in 2016, it was included since it was not present in our previous review) (Figure 1). Of these 20 articles, 8 studied cross-reactivity or cosensitisation with either crustaceans or HDM (Barre et al, 2019;Beaumont et al, 2019;Broekman et al, 2017a;Hall et al, 2018;Kamemura et al, 2019;Pali-Scholl et al, 2019;Palmer et al, 2020;Sokol et al, 2017), 5 focused on primary sensitisation (Broekman et al, 2017a,b;Francis et al, 2019;Jeong et al, 2017;Nebbia et al, 2019), 1 evaluated allergenic potential of insect tropomyosin (Klueber et al, 2020), 3 studied the effects of food processing techniques on insects' allergenicity (Hall et al, 2018;Hall and Liceaga, 2020;Pali-Scholl et al, 2019), 4 were case reports or case series (Beaumont et al, 2019;Gadisseur et al, 2019;Nebbia et al, 2019;Sokol et al, 2017), 3 assessed the frequency of food allergies or food anaphylaxis caused by insects (Jiang et al, 2016;Lee et al, 2019;Rangkakulnuwat et al, 2020) and 2 assessed the prevalence of allergic reaction among insect-eaters (Chomchai et al, 2020;Taylor and Wang, 2018).…”

A Proteomic- and Bioinformatic-Based Identification of Specific Allergens from Edible Insects: Probes for Future Detection as Food Ingredients

“…Recently, functional biological bioassays based on tropomyosin as immuno-probes, have been proposed to assess the tropomyosin allergenicity of novel animal foods [86]. However, even though its allergenic character has been demonstrated [87], the cockroach-like allergen protein, which is apparently restricted to the yellow mealworm, could not serve as a relevant immuno-probe for the detection of insect proteins.…”

Allergens from Edible Insects: Cross-reactivity and Effects of Processing

“…Occupational allergies should also be considered in this scenario. It is known that SW and mealworm breeders, as well as people exposed to locusts, could raise inhalant allergy against other insects [ 61 , 62 ••, 63 – 65 ]. Would they also react after eating edible insects?…”