MANGLIN

Management of gluten intolerance:  novel insights in occurence, immunogenetics, food processing and safety  

Consortium Leader:
 Professor Markku Mäki, University of Tampere, Medical School (http://www.celiacresearch.eu)

Other group leaders:
Professor Juha Kere, University of Helsinki, Biomedicum
Professor Pekka Männistö, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Pharmacy
Professor Hannu Salovaara, University of Helsinki, Department of Food Technology

Other persons involved in the project:
Katri Kaukinen, MD, PhD; Pekka Collin, MD, PhD; Katri Lindfors PhD; Liisa Luostarinen MD, PhD; Anita Vilppula MD; Kalle Kurppa MD; Sini Lohi MD; Anne Heimonen, technician, Jorma Kulmala, technician; Marja-Terttu Oksanen, research nurse; Kaija Kaskela, secretary
University of Tampere, Medical School, Coeliac Disease Study Group: 
University of Helsinki, Department of Medical Genetics  (Group Kere, Group Holopainen)
Päivi Holopainen, PhD; Emma Dukes, PhD; Elisabet Einarsdottir, PhD; Andrea de Kauwe, PhD; Fabiana Ziberna, PhD; Lotta Koskinen, MSc; Amarjit Parmar, MSc; Ovidiu Braicu, Dipl. Eng, MD;  Lilli Sundman, BSc; Auli Saarinen, laboratory technician; Hanne Ahola, laboratory technician
University of Helsinki, Department of Food Technology, Cereal Technology
Tuula Sontag-Strohm, University lecturer; Jussi Loponen,  MSc; Päivi Kanerva, M.Sc; University of Helsinki, Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology and University of Kuopio, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Matti Autero, PhD; Arturo Garcia-Horsman, PhD, Jarkko Venäläinen, PhD; Seppo Aurila, PhD

ABSTRACT

Celiac disease (CD) is an intolerance against dietary gluten present in wheat, rye and barley and it belongs to the most common food related life-long disorders in Europe and United States. Today the only effective treatment for CD is a life-long gluten-free diet where wheat, rye and barley are excluded from the diet. As adhering to a strict gluten-free diet is burdensome, new treatment options are warranted. CD patients are exposed to gluten contaminations in food every day. This faces the food industry up with a challenge to develop reliable methods to quantify gluten contamination, to promote the development of products entirely free of these contaminations and to inform celiacs with food labels which products are safe. The objectives of the current consortium projects are to find out how large a proportion of the entire Finnish population suffer from gluten intolerance and thus need to permanently omit gluten from their daily diet in order to sustain health and general well-being as well as to prevent the protean associated diseases and complications of CD. In addition, our aim is to identify genetic factors modifying the effects of gluten in wheat, rye and barley in susceptible individuals by identifying genes predisposing to or protecting from CD and to sort out their functional significance as well as to study the healthy immune response to dietary gluten and genetic pathways behind it. Furthermore, we intend to develop more efficient, simple and non-invasive diagnostic tools, both serology-based and genetic, that potentiate the identification of the vulnerable gluten-sensitive population subgroup that benefit from life-long gluten-free diet already in the early phase of the disease process. The study also aims at eliminating the celiac-toxic/immunogenic fractions present in wheat, rye and barley by novel enzymes and/or by extensive prolamin hydrolysis in order to develop new celiac-safe foods as well as at studying whether soluble oat fiber and its copassengers could act as small bowel mucosal health promoting components also suitable for CD patients. These oat products together with enzymatically processed foods would lead to development of new safe high-quality food products for gluten intolerant persons worldwide and would considerably diversify the restricted life-long gluten-free diet of CD patients. Finally we will develop relevant and reliable analytical techniques for the detection of celiac-toxic proteins in foods in order to be able to monitor the safety of gluten-free products. 

The ultimate goal of this research is to understand the role of nutrition in health and well being: sustaining health and preventing disease. These aims will be reached through a novel multidisciplinary collaborative network involving clinical and epidemiological research, immunogenetics, cell biology, cereal technology and pharmacology. The end user of our results, CD patients, will be the primary beneficiary of the scientific progress on this field.

Key words:   Gluten, celiac disease, wheat, rye, barley, oats, gluten contamination, safe food, mucosal health, genetic gluten intolerance, immunogenetics, detoxification, prolamin analysis, Codex Alimentarius, health benefit, morbidity, prevention, food labeling, quality-of-life, public health, high quality food