The precise cause of the immune reaction that leads to coeliac disease has been discovered.
Three key substances in the gluten found in wheat, rye and barley trigger the digestive condition, UK and Australian researchers say.
This gives a potential new target for developing treatments and even a vaccine, they believe.
Coeliac disease is caused by an intolerance to gluten found in foods like bread, pasta and biscuits.
It is thought to affect around 1 in every 100 people in the UK, particularly women.
The link between gluten and coeliac disease was first established 60 years ago but scientists have struggled to pinpoint the precise component in gluten that triggers it.
The research, published in the journal, Science Translational Medicine, studied 200 patients with coeliac disease attending clinics in Oxford and Melbourne.
The volunteers were asked to eat bread, rye muffins or boiled barley. Six days later they had blood samples taken to measure their immune response to thousands of different gluten fragments, or peptides.
BBC News
