Abstract
Wheat is a most favored staple food worldwide and its major protein is gluten. It is involved in several gluten dependent diseases and lately was suggested to play a role in non-celiac autoimmune diseases. Its involvement in neurodegenerative conditions was recently suggested but no cause-and-effect relationship were established. The present narrative review expands on various aspects of the gluten-gut-brain axes events, mechanisms and pathways that connect wheat and gluten consumption to neurodegenerative disease. Gluten induced dysbiosis, increased intestinal permeabillity, enteric and systemic side effects, cross-reactive antibodies, and the sequence of homologies between brain antigens and gluten are highlighted. This combination may suggest molecular mimicry, alluding to some autoimmune aspects between gluten and neurodegenerative disease. The proverb of Hippocrates coined in 400 BC, “let food be thy medicine,” is critically discussed in the frame of gluten and potential neurodegeneration evolvement.
Highlights
Cells 2021, 10, 756. https://doi.org/The gut–brain axes connote a very complex and a challenging topic that tries to decipher the cross-talks between the two extrema, functionally dependent compartments.For decades, the brain dominated the arena
The first part of this review addresses the relationship between gluten and neurodegenerative diseases, while the second part screen the cross-reactivity and the sequence homology between gluten peptides and human central nervous systems’ antigens
The present review expands on two aspects, namely the cross reactivity and sequence homology between gluten and human brain epitopes, reinforcing the molecular mimicry between the two
Summary
The gut–brain axes connote a very complex and a challenging topic that tries to decipher the cross-talks between the two extrema, functionally dependent compartments. The first part of this review addresses the relationship between gluten and neurodegenerative diseases, while the second part screen the cross-reactivity and the sequence homology between gluten peptides and human central nervous systems’ antigens. Database (www.iedb.org, accessed on 21 March 2021) was searched to extract all human antigens epitopes that are implicated in central neuronal diseases. This included Alzheimer disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Multiple Sclerosis. Neuronal epitopes that were found in the literature search to have cross reactivity or sequence homology with Gliadin, were included in this epitopes list [5,6,7,8,9,10,11].
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