Celiac disease (CD) is an immune-mediated disease that is triggered by the ingestion of wheat gliadins and related prolamins from other cereals, such as barley and rye. To make life more comfortable, research is intense to find wheat of low or null toxicity for patients with celiac disease (CD). Among candidates, there are diploid wheat species.

Celiac disease is a multifactorial disorder that affects children and adults with high prevalence. It is characterized by an inflammatory response to ingested wheat gluten proteins. Both classes of gluten proteins, gliadins and glutenins, con ain peptides that can bind DQ2 or DQ8 and be recognized by intestinal T cells, but their relative importance differs. Peptides derived from α-gliadins are recognized by T cells from almost all celiac patients, whereas Tcell responses to γ-gliadins and glutenins are much less frequent.

Celiac disease (CD) is caused by an uncontrolled immune response to gluten, a heterogeneous mixture of wheat storage proteins. The CD-toxicity of these proteins and their derived peptides is depending on the presence of specific T-cell epitopes (9-mer peptides; CD epitopes) that mediate the stimulation of HLA-DQ2/8 restricted T-cells. Next to the thoroughly characterized major T-cell epitopes derived from the α-gliadin fraction of gluten, γ-gliadin peptides are also known to stimulate T-cells of celiac disease patients.

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) is an important staple food. However, wheat gluten proteins cause celiac disease (CD) in 0.5 to 1% of the general population. Among these proteins, the α-gliadins contain several peptides that are associated to the disease. The authors obtained 230 distinct α-gliadin gene sequences from several diploid wheat species representing the ancestral A, B, and D genomes of the hexaploid bread wheat.

During the last decades, an increase has been observed in the prevalence of Celiac Disease (CD). This may partly be attributed to a raise in awareness of the disease and improved diagnostic techniques. But in the meantime, a higher wheat and gluten consumption may also be a major cause. In addition to these aspects, the genetics of wheat may also play an important role on the development of CD (Van den Broeck et al., 2010).