IMMUNOCHEMICAL STUDIES OF THE PLANT PROTEINS: 
PROTEINS OF THE WHEAT SEED AND OTHER 
CEREALS. STUDY IX^ 
R. P. WODEHOUSE 
That wheat foods are active in causing asthma has become an 
estabhshed fact and it has been shown that watery extracts made from 
practically any of the wheat foods except those cooked at very high 
temperatures (Goodale 'i6) will give positive skin reactions when 
tested by means of the skin test (which is generally considered a test 
for anaphylactic sensitization) to wheat asthmatics. This present 
work was undertaken in order to find out which protein or proteins 
of the wheat seed were responsible for the production of asthma by 
isolating them individually in as pure a form as possible and testing 
by means of the skin reaction. 
The reserve proteins of wheat have been thoroughly studied by 
Osborne and his co-workers (Osborne 'lo, 'loA, '07). By these in- 
vestigators many different protein preparations were made from the 
wheat seed and it was shown by very careful analyses of these that 
there are five and probably only five distinct reserve proteins present 
in the seed and these fall into the well-known protein classes as follows : 
Albumin of wheat = leucosin 
Globulin of wheat = wheat globulin 
Prolamine of wheat = gliadin 
Glutelin of wheat = glutenin 
f u _ i wheat natural proteose 
These proteins can be distinguished by their elementary composi- 
tion and by their amino-acid content which these investigators have 
worked out (Osborne '10, Osborne and Clapp '06) but they are most 
readily distinguished by their solubility characteristics which are used 
to place them in the groups of plant proteins to which they belong. 
For convenience they are briefly here summarized as follows: 
1 Made possible through a gift by Mr. Charles F. Choat, Jr., Boston, to the 
Peter Bent Brigham Hospital for the study of bronchial asthma. 
