Towards a Biochemical Reconstitution of Nepenthes Pitcher Fluid for the Treatment of Celiac Disease
Abstract
Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disorder that is triggered by the incomplete digestion of gliadins in dietary gluten due to the abundance of P and Q residues in their protein sequence(s). This thesis provides an initial assessment of the proteolytic activity of Nepenthes plant extracts, which is attributed to the aspartic proteases, nepenthesin I and II, potential as an oral protease therapeutic for CD. To this end, nepenthesin I and II were produced recombinantly and characterized. The recombinant nepenthesins were able to reconstitute the proteolytic activity of Nepenthes extracts except for cleavage after P, which was attributed to a previously unidentified protease. Nevertheless, the Nepenthes extracts and recombinant nepenthesin I/II were assessed for their capacity to detoxify gliadins. Although the recombinant nepenthesins alone did not appear sufficient, the Nepenthes plant extracts appeared to efficiently detoxify gliadin, which supports the proposed formulations potential as an effective oral therapeutic for CD.
Description
Keywords
Biochemistry
Citation
Yang, M. (2014). Towards a Biochemical Reconstitution of Nepenthes Pitcher Fluid for the Treatment of Celiac Disease (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28475