An Overview of Seafood Allergens: Structure–Allergenicity Relationship and Allergenicity Elimination Processing Techniques

作者：Yang Yang, Yehao Zhang, Xinrong He, Fei Huan, Jinli Chen, Meng Liu, Siyang He, Shuyan Gu, Guang‐Ming Liu · 发表于：Foods · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3390/foods14132241 · 被引用次数：10 · 研究领域：Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Research、Allergic Rhinitis and Sensitization、Contact Dermatitis and Allergies

Seafood (fish, crustacean, and mollusk) allergy represents a critical global health issue. Food processing offers a viable strategy for allergenicity mitigation and serves as a critical intervention for seafood allergy prevention. This paper reviews recent advances in seafood allergen research, with particular focus on molecular properties, epitopes, and structure-allergenicity relationships, which are foundations for designing processing technologies to mitigate allergenicity. Furthermore, an analysis of how various food processing techniques modulate allergen structures and epitopes, ultimately affecting their allergenicity, was conducted. Current World Health Organization (WHO)/International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS) listings include 44 fish allergens and 60 shellfish allergens, with their characterization enabling targeted processing approaches for allergenicity elimination. Physical processing techniques, including thermal and non-thermal treatment, can dramatically influence the conformational and linear epitopes by altering or destroying the structure of an allergen. Chemistry-based processing techniques (enzymatic-catalyzed cross-linking and glycation), which induce covalent/non-covalent interactions between allergens and various modifiers, can effectively mask epitopes through molecular complexation. Biological processing attenuates allergenicity by inducing protein unfolding, polypeptide chain uncoiling, and enzymatic degradation. Nevertheless, the str...