Limited proteolysis as a means to reduce the allergenicity of seed storage globulins

According to SDAP (structural database of allergenic proteins, http://fermi.utmb.edu/), storage 11S and 7S globulins from seeds of peanut, soybean and some other plants are allergens. A β-barrel conjoined with a group of α-helices represents the structural basis of domains of the two-domain 11S and 7S seed storage globulins. During evolution, extended disordered inserts of enhanced susceptibility to proteolytic attack appeared in the amino acid sequences of storage globulins outside the β-barrel-α-helix structural module. Regularities of storage globulin limited proteolysis during seed germination and in vitro are determined by these inserts. In this review, available information on successive reactions of limited proteolysis specific to 11S and 7S globulins from peanut, soybean and some other plants is collected. It was demonstrated that limited proteolysis of 11S globulin from peanut (A. Cherdivară et al., 2017) calls forth destruction of a C-terminal region of a-chains, including the region forming the group of α-helices...