An agricultural research group is creating a hypoallergenic apple by substituting natural proteins for those which don't cause an allergic reaction.
Apples are not usually associated with allergies. However, 75 per cent of people suffering from an allergy to birch pollen are also allergic to apples.
Those sensitive to the fruit can still experience unpleasant irritation and blistering of the tongue and lips.
Experts including molecular biologists, plant physiologists and allergy specialists are genetically mapping out the apple and swapping irritant proteins for hypoallergenic versions found elsewhere in nature.
But the team is being cautious when it comes to the impact of updating the apple. ‘You cannot know what will happen when you silence a biological gene,’ plant physiologist, Alessandro Botton told Wired, explaining that the effects of a genetic switch would need to be monitored for unintended side effects.
However, allergies are not static so what starts off as a hypoallergenic apple could still begin to cause irritation in consumers over time.
‘Some people who are allergic may simply say they don’t like apples, since they’ve a very mild reaction after eating them,’ Eric van de Weg, plant scientist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands told Fresh Plaza.
‘But others will suffer blistering, problems catching their breadth and swollen lips, tongue and throat.’
The problem with projects like this is that a large section of the public are not willing to eat genetically engineered foods.
The reduction of allergens in the food chain is extremely important though, says Lynn Frewer, an expert in risk communication in Newcastle University, UK.
‘Although consumers – and in particular food-allergic consumers – were more positive about the [GM] apple, there was still a clear preference for traditional breeding methods applied to the same end if possible, even for food allergic consumers,’ she says.
However, Mother Nature rather than GM may offer alternative solutions. ‘There are hundreds of apple varieties already available,’ says Allessandro Botton, a plant geneticist at the University of Padova, Italy, and some of these may hold answers.
For instance, it is known that apple varieties such as Golden Delicious and Granny Smith are part of the high-allergenic group, whereas Jonagold and Gloster induce only low allergenic responses.
dailymail.co.uk