The impact of elevated carbon dioxide concentration and other environmental conditions on the allergenicity of peanuts

"Several parameters associated with climate change, in particular elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations, influence peanut plant growth. Commercial peanut plants grown in different regions of Australia are exposed to different environmental conditions. After extensive evaluation of methods to analyse the allergenicity of peanuts on a protein level, projected CO2 concentrations and different growth regions in Australia were tested for their impact on the abundance of peanut allergens. While the impact of elevated CO2 could not be determined conclusively, different environmental growth conditions did not appear to have an impact on the allergenicity of peanuts. Peanuts from different growing regions in Australia had a vet similar allergen content. The extraction method strongly influenced allergen extraction efficiency and their subsequent detection, which shows that the standardisation of peanut protein extraction is essential to quantify peanut allergenicity and understand its molecular and physiological basis." -- Abstract.