Salivary proline‐rich proteins and gluten: Do structural similarities suggest a role in celiac disease?. Issue 9 (24th April 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tian, Na; Messana, Irene; Leffler, Daniel A.; Kelly, Ciaran P.; Hansen, Joshua; Cabras, Tiziana; D'Alessandro, Alfredo; Schuppan, Detlef; Castagnola, Massimo; Helmerhorst, Eva J.; Martins‐de‐Souza, Daniel
• Is Part Of: Proteomics. Volume 9:Issue 9/10(2015)
• Page Start: 953
• Page End: 964
• Publication Date: 2015-04-24
• Subjects: Proteomics -- Periodicals; 572.605
• DOI: 10.1002/prca.201400170
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1862-8346

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <sec id="prca1657-sec-0010" sec-type="section"> <title>Purpose</title> <p>Gluten proteins, the culprits in celiac disease (CD), show striking similarities in primary structure with human salivary proline‐rich proteins (PRPs). Both are enriched in proline and glutamine residues that often occur consecutively in their sequences. We investigated potential differences in the spectrum of salivary PRPs in health and CD.</p> </sec> <sec id="prca1657-sec-0020" sec-type="section"> <title>Experimental design</title> <p>Stimulated salivary secretions were collected from CD patients, patients with refractory CD, patients with gastrointestinal complaints but no CD, and healthy controls. PRP isoforms/peptides were characterized by anionic and SDS‐PAGE, PCR, and LC‐ESI‐MS.</p> </sec> <sec id="prca1657-sec-0030" sec-type="section"> <title>Results</title> <p>The gene frequencies of the acidic PRP isoforms PIF, Db, Pa, PRP1, and PRP2 did not differ between groups. At the protein level, PRPs peptides showed minor group differences, but these could not differentiate the CD and/or refractory CDs groups from the controls.</p> </sec> <sec id="prca1657-sec-0040" sec-type="section"> <title>Conclusions and clinical relevance</title> <p>This extensive study established that salivary PRPs, despite similarity to gluten proteins, show no apparent correlation with CD and thus will not serve as diagnostic markers for the disease. The structural basis for the tolerance to the gluten‐like PRP proteins in CD is worthy of further exploration and may lead to the development of gluten‐like analogs lacking immunogenicity that could be used therapeutically.</p> </sec> </abstract>