A Novel Proteomic Analysis of the Modifications Induced by High Hydrostatic Pressure on Hazelnut Water-Soluble Proteins

Food allergies to hazelnut represent an important health problem in industrialized countries because of their high prevalence and severity. Food allergenicity can be changed by several processing procedures since food proteins may undergo modifications which could alter immunoreactivity. High-hydrostatic pressure (HHP) is an emerging processing technology used to develop novel and high-quality foods. The effect of HHP on allergenicity is currently being investigated through changes in protein structure. Our aim is to evaluate the effect of HHP on the protein profile of hazelnut immunoreactive extracts by comparative proteomic analysis with ProteomeLab PF-2D liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. This protein fractionation method resolves proteins by isoelectric point and hydrophobicity in the first and second dimension, respectively. Second dimension chromatogram analyses show that some protein peaks present in unpressurized hazelnut must be unsolubilized and are not present in HHP-treated hazelnut extracts. Our results show that HHP treatment at low temperature induced marked changes on hazelnut water-soluble protein profile.