FERALL

Increasing the proportion of plant proteins in the human diet and developing a sustainable diet are one of the answers to the economic, nutritional and ecological challenges of the coming decades, in order to feed more than 9 billion people.

Certain cereals (wheat) and legumes (soya) are excellent sources of protein with high nutritional value. However, these proteins are less digestible than animal proteins and can also cause allergies or auto-immune diseases in certain predisposed individuals.

The FerAll project aims to assess the ability of lactic acid bacteria isolated from sourdough (a collection of French strains) and natural ferments (Brazilian fermented products) to hydrolyse gluten and soya proteins, in order to reduce their allergenicity through the fermentation process. The epithelial transport of the fermented products will be studied after in vitro digestion. The residual capacity of fermented products to provoke an allergic reaction will be tested with sera from allergic patients, enabling the least allergenic proteins to be identified.

These pre-hydrolysed proteins will enable the preparation of hypoallergenic foods or new foods better tolerated by the elderly or consumers suffering from certain digestive problems.

This project is being led by the BIA Unit's allergy team in collaboration with the « Food Research Center » Institute at the University of Sao Paulo and the ONIRIS GEPEA Unit.

It is funded as part of the RFI Food for Tomorrow / Cap Aliment programme.

• Project duration: 18 months (April 2018-September 2019)
• Coordination: INRA BIA (project leader: Colette Larré)
• Academic partners:

                - INRA BIA
                - ONIRIS GEPEA
                - Food Research Center, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

• Total budget: €91,000 including €85,000 from the RFI