Searching for wheat plants with low toxicity in celiac disease: Between direct toxicity and immunologic activation

Natural or induced variations in the noxiousness of gluten proteins for celiac disease (CD) patients are currently being investigated for their potential in breeding wheat crops with reduced toxicity.

We evaluated the bread wheat line C173 for its effects on the in vitro-grown duodenal mucosa of CD patients.

In vitro-grown duodenal mucosa biopsies of 19 CD patients on a gluten-free diet were exposed to peptic/tryptic-digested prolamins from bread wheat line C173 lacking gliadin-glutenin subunits, analyzed for morphology, cytokine and anti-tTG antibody production, and compared with mucosa biopsies exposed to prolamins from wild-type cv. San Pastore.

Duodenal mucosa biopsies exposed to prolamins from C173 and San Pastore released higher amounts of IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-10 and anti-tTG antibodies in the culture medium than untreated controls. The line C173 differed from cv. San Pastore as it did not produce negative effects on enterocyte height, suggesting that manipulating prolamin composition can affect innate immune responses of CD mucosa to wheat gluten.

Our data demonstrated that this gliadin-deficient wheat has a lower direct toxicity but activates an immunologic reaction of the duodenal mucosa like that of the common wheat species.