Celiac Disease: Historical Standpoint, New Perspectives of Treatments and Contemporary Research Techniques

摘要

Celiac disease (CD) is an inflammatory syndrome that affects mainly the intestine, but alsoother organs. This ailment is also affected by the physicochemical behavior of gluten as such. From themedical standpoint, this pathology results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Atthe same time, gliadin (the alcohol-soluble fraction of gluten) along with other related oligomers, suchas 33-gliadin, present high immunogenicity and are responsible for triggering of this disease. Within CDcharacterization, there are mainly two different approaches to carry out this study; one focuses on itschronic phase, while the other deals with its initial stages. Although the chronic phase of CD has beenwell characterized, the initiation of the inflammatory process is still unclear. As this process is apparentlyrelated to the aggregation of the oligomers involved in CD, the initiation of the disease could beexplained by means of clarifying their self-assembly behavior. Thus, this work addresses the clinicalexplanation, within the chronic approach, attempting to combine it with the physicochemical techniquesused for characterization of proteins aggregates as well.