Crustacean Allergens and Impact of different Processing Techniques on its Allergenicity: A Review

Abstract

Allergenicity to crustaceans is a global food safety concern in spite of acceptance of delicacies like shrimps, crabs and lobsters. They are also the leading causative of food induced anaphylaxis. Major percentage of allergic reactions are triggered by allergic protein, tropomyosin and the others such as arginine kinase, sarcoplasmic calcium-binding protein, myosin light chain, troponin C, hemocyanin are also involved. Prevalence of crustacean allergenicty, allergens reported in different crustaceans and their cross reactivities are discussed in this reviews. Besides the effect of various thermal and non-thermal processing techniques in managing the crustacean allergen is also discussed. In comparison to the enhanced allergenicity effects reported by thermal techniques, novel non-thermal techniques like high pressure processing, gamma irradiation, enzymic hydrolysis, high intensity ultrasound, pulsed ultraviolet light etc have promising effects on allergenicity reduction by structural modifications in the proteins. The advantages of combined treatments in hurdle technology approaches can make effective mitigation of crustacean allergenicity and can be suitably optimized for hypoallergic food development.