Effect of high-voltage electrostatic field-assisted enzymatic co-processing on the allergenicity of ovalbumin and its mechanistic insights.

Egg allergy, affecting approximately 17.3% of food allergy cases, is a prevalent hypersensitivity with ovalbumin (OVA) as a major allergen. In the current study, we employed a combined treatment of high-voltage electrostatic field (HVEF, 14 kV, 30 min) and papain hydrolysis (15 min) to modify OVA, analyzing structural and allergenic changes using spectroscopic, immunological, and in vivo methods. The treatment induced significant conformational shifts: α-helix content dropped from 41.1% to 9.9%, while surface hydrophobicity increased from 33.1 to 82.7, masking or destroying allergenic epitopes. ELISA data showed a 52.8% reduction in the antigenicity of OVA, confirmed by UPLC-MS/MS analysis, which identified the loss of linear epitopes. In the animal experiment, the OVA-specific IgE levels of the treated OVA reduced from 1634.2 to 893.6 pg/mL and decreased the release of inflammatory cytokines, validating the efficacy of this non-thermal strategy in allergen mitigation through structural disruption and epitope degradation.