Toxicological, genotoxicological, antigenotoxicological, cytotoxicity and lifespan studies of beer and some components

Food manufacturers are moving towards sustainable, alternative protein sources, which should have the lowest allergy risk possible. Until now, accurate pre-marketing assessment of the allergenicity of new proteins is impossible. Moreover, existing guidance documents are restricted to qualitative assessment, have low predictive value and result often in an oversimplification in terms of hazard assessment. To overcome those limitations, we developeda two-dimensional scale for expressingallergenicity that allows a quantitative hazard characterisation of new proteins. The two dimensions of the scale were defined as (1) the prevalence expressed as the percentage of the general population that has the allergy and (2) the potency of the protein expressed as the ED50 in mg-protein of the allergen (the dose that provokes objective allergic responses in 50% of the allergic persons). Severity of symptoms was not included, since this is a result of the nature of the exposure and the sensitivity of the individual rather than an inherent and independent attribute of the protein. The scale was further developed by ranking 11 allergenic products based on in total 1786 data points on potency and 22 scientific papers on prevalence, selected after a critical review. The resulting 2-dimensional scale can be used to project a new protein on the scale and assess its potential hazard relative to the known allergens. In a next step, we aim to develop a model that predicts the position of a new protein on the scale using its physical, chemical and biological characteristics.