Rapid analysis of wheat gluten composition using a triple ELISA

Clemens Schuster; Julien Huen; Thomas Weiss; Katharina Anne Scherf

doi:10.1002/jsfa.13521

Rapid analysis of wheat gluten composition using a triple ELISA

J Sci Food Agric. 2024 Apr 9. doi: 10.1002/jsfa.13521. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Clemens Schuster^{1

2}, Julien Huen³, Thomas Weiss⁴, Katharina Anne Scherf^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ TUM School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.
² Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.
³ ttz Bremerhaven, Bremerhaven, Germany.
⁴ R-Biopharm AG, Darmstadt, Germany.
⁵ TUM School of Life Sciences, Professorship of Food Biopolymer Systems, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.

PMID: 38591632
DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.13521

Abstract

Background: Gluten composition is an important quality parameter of wheat flour. Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) is a state-of-the-art method for its analysis. As this is a very labour-intensive and time-consuming procedure, alternative faster methods are desirable. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a high-throughput method often used for the analysis of gluten traces in gluten-free products. In this proof-of-principle study, we introduce an experimental triple ELISA for the relative quantitation of gliadins, high-molecular-weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) and low-molecular-weight glutenin subunits (LMW-GS) of one wheat flour extract.

Results: The results of 80 common wheat flour samples obtained from the triple ELISA and RP-HPLC were correlated. The results for gliadins (r = 0.69) and HMW-GS (r = 0.81) showed a medium and high correlation, respectively. Only a very weak correlation of ELISA and RP-HPLC results was observed for LMW-GS (r = 0.49). Results for glutenins (r = 0.69) and gluten (r = 0.72) had a medium correlation. The gliadin/glutenin ratio (r = 0.47) and LMW-GS/HMW-GS ratio (r = 0.40) showed a weak or no correlation. The gliadin, LMW-GS and gluten contents were lower and the HMW-GS content was higher in the ELISA measurement compared to RP-HPLC.

Conclusion: The quantitation of gliadins and HMW-GS by the experimental triple ELISA showed comparable results to RP-HPLC, whereas no strong correlation between the results from the two methods was found for LMW-GS. Overall, the experimental triple ELISA is suitable for relative gluten quantitation, especially for the analysis of large sample sets. Further work will focus on improving the experimental procedure of the ELISA. © 2024 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Keywords: gliadins; glutenins; high‐molecular‐weight glutenin subunits; low‐molecular‐weight glutenin subunits; reversed‐phase high‐performance liquid chromatography.

Abstract

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