TOXICITY OF CEREAL PROTEIN-DERIVED PEPTIDES FOR INVITRO DEVELOPING INTESTINE FROM RAT FETUS

This paper describes work that shows that the PTC digest of gliadins extracted from hexaploid wheat flour have the same toxic activity of the PTC digest of gliadins extracted from hexaploid wheat gluten. Moreover, not all wheat species apparently contain the toxic components, thus suggesting that durum wheat foods may present, as compared to soft wheat foods, a lower risk for human health under particular circumstances. Similar considerations seem to apply to other cereal genera that seem to differ with respect to the presence and/or content of toxic peptides. Further experiments to test such a working hypothesis are now being made. © 1979 The American Oil Chemists' Society.