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Background: Glycinin is a seed storage protein in soybean (Glycine max) that is allergenic in pigs. Glycinin is a hexamer composed of subunits consisting of basic and acidic portions joined by disulfide bridges. There are five glycinin subunit isoforms designated Gy1-Gy5. The purpose of this study is to identify epitopes from selected glycinin subunits that are antigenic in pigs., Results: Twenty-seven out of 30 pigs had antibodies against glycinin in their sera. Ten of these sera had immunoglobulin G (IgG) against the Gy4 (A5A4B3) or Gy1 (A1aBx) subunit. Three sera recognised overlapping regions between the two subunits tested, though no serum stained both A5A4B3 and A1aBx. Two sera stained a highly conserved region between A5A4B3 and A1aBx, though again neither serum stained both peptides. The basic part of the A1aBx subunit was not recognised by any of the sera tested even though immunoblot data indicated that the basic and acidic subunits of glycinin are nearly equally antigenic., Conclusion: Two antigenic regions of A5A4B3 and A1aBx were identified that bound antibodies in half of the sera that reacted with these two proteins. Half of the sera reacted with unique regions of A5A4B3 and A1aBx. The failure of the basic portion of A1aBx to bind pig antibodies may indicate that it is less antigenic than the basic portion of A5A4B3 and other glycinin subunits., (Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.)

Food allergy is an important public health issue worldwide. Allergic consumers must avoid eating foods that could provoke potentially life-threatening reactions, and successful avoidance depends on having complete and accurate information on food labels. Regulatory agencies support allergic consumers by working with industry to ensure that all food allergens that are intended to be present in a food are declared on the label and that effective controls are used to prevent the presence of unintended allergens. These regulatory activities take place in a complex legal and policy environment both domestically and internationally. Protecting allergic consumers in this complex environment requires effective use of public health data and risk assessments.

A symposium titled "Advances in Food Allergen Detection" was held at the 243rd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in March 2012 in San Diego, CA, and was sponsored by the ACS Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The purpose of the symposium was to convene the leaders in the food allergen analysis field for presentations on, and discussions of, the state of the art, new developments, and critical challenges in the detection and quantitation of allergenic proteins in foods. Twenty-five presentations were delivered by speakers representing academic, government, and industrial institutions in 10 countries. The presentations covered all aspects of food allergens, including a historical progress review, regulatory policies, clinical practices, food-processing effects, food production equipment cross-contamination and cleaning, and the performance of several food allergen analytical strategies and technologies. This paper is intended to provide a brief summary of the presentations as well as a record of the proceedings of the symposium, which was deemed a great success in advancing food allergen analysis.