Gluten, casein, and ovalbumin were 3 proteins capable of inducing antibodies but how?
If they were functioning as serpins like the human maspin which is involved with breast cancer then they might be involved with growth. Maspin is a serpin which when lost causes breast cancer to grow out of control. So i began to think about these serpins as growth inhibitors and doing searches online. I ran across an article about corn gluten inhibiting the growth of crab grass. When i looked up the original article by Ohio state I discovered that the original experiment was looking at a parasitic grass fungus. Grass seed grown on the corn meal failed to germinate and the fungus failed to be parasitic. The researchers conducting the experiment focused on the inhibition of the grass roots specifically and started to sell the corn gluten as an organic crab grass treatment for golfcourses. In my mind I realized if the gluten haulted the grass roots it might hault the fungus roots too which would explain why it failed to thrive.
Then I remembered that to prevent powdery mildew the organic method was to spray milk on the leaves. Was it possible that milk casein haulted powdery mildew roots in the same manner that corn gluten haulted root growth?
This year i conducted a very relaxed experiment with my kids, not a very scientific one. I decided to grow grass seed in paper cups but expose some to wheat gluten and milk everyday. Only the controls grew grass for my children. Now I could not say the effect was just casein because any of the other proteins in milk could be involved. I still suspected that gluten was actually something similar to a gluten serpin because the amino acid sequence was right but i had enough evidence now that i felt i was on the right track.
Taking the root idea back to the human maspin...well breast cells don't really have a root. Then it dawned on me the cells in the body that grow the most like a root are nerves. When I looked up what was know about nerves i realized that there was a neuroserpin which did in some way hault growth but that the entire area was hazy. I hadn't seen an "on serine protease" for the Maspin. Could I see one for neuroserpin?
I have covered a lot in a short period of time here. Can anyone out there follow my logic about serpins and roots?
Angela Biggs
Wow, that is fascinating. I think it is interesting that nerves and roots grow similarly enough that the serpines would affect them the same way. Maybe the growth inhibition idea could be why affects the people with celiac disease in how their villi are unable to grow properly?
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