Testing safety of germinated rye sourdough in a celiac disease model based on the adoptive transfer of prolamin-primed memory T cells into lymphopenic mice.

The current treatment for celiac disease is strict gluten-free diet. Technical processing may render gluten-containing foods safe for consumption by celiac patients, but so far in vivo safety testing can only be performed on patients. We modified a celiac disease mouse model to test antigenicity and inflammatory effects of germinated rye sourdough, a food product characterized by extensive prolamin hydrolysis. Lymphopenic Rag1−/− or nude mice were injected with splenic CD4+CD62L−CD44high-memory T cells from gliadin- or secalin-immunized wild-type donor mice. We found that: 1) Rag1−/− recipients challenged with wheat or rye gluten lost more body weight and developed more severe histological…