Effect of plasma processing gas on Ara h 1 in peanut protein extract

Abstract

Peanut allergen Ara h 1 is one of the most common food allergens in the world, and it is highly allergenic owing to its stable structure. Cold plasma is an emerging non-thermal processing technology that generates reactive radicals that enable the rapid degradation of allergenic protein. In this study, the effectiveness of two plasma treatment gases on the inhibition of the Ara h 1 allergen in peanut protein extract was investigated as the gases were expected to react with the allergen differently. The results revealed that the antigenicity of Ara h 1 decreased by approximately 55% after 13 min of cold plasma treatment. This may be attributed to the destruction of the α-helix structure. In addition, compared to air cold plasma treatment, nitrogen plasma treatment only caused less than one third of oxidative damage to the samples. In summary, air and nitrogen plasmas are both effective in reducing peanut allergen Ara h 1, but the peanut maintained most of its original quality after nitrogen cold plasma treatment. The result of this study demonstrated that nitrogen cold plasma is a great candidate for reducing Ara h 1 for effective food processing.