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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Dec 9.
Published in final edited form as: J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2008 Jun;121(6):1301–1310. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2008.04.025

FIG 3.

FIG 3

The gate-keeping function of the stomach in the sensitization and effector phase of food allergy. The fate of a dietary protein depends on the gastric digestive function mainly accomplished by the gastric protease pepsin. If the protein structure is destroyed because of proteolysis, oral tolerance or immune ignorance and a reduced allergenic potential might be the result. However, when gastric digestion is impaired (eg, under hypoacidic gastric conditions), digestion-labile proteins might trigger oral sensitization or severe allergic symptoms in a previously sensitized individual. The figure was created with the structural information provided from Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank accession numbers 3PSG and 5PEP.