This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A team at the University of Córdoba (UCO) has reviewed and updated the catalog of versions of the wheat gene GLU-B1, which is responsible for a protein that makes up gluten. The team has also made a collection of wheat representing the gene's true variability available to the research community.
Gluten gives bread its spongy crumb, makes pizza dough stretchy and keeps pasta from falling apart when cooked. Its viscoelastic protein network makes wheat special. Glutenins are among the proteins responsible for these properties of wheat flour dough, and wheat breeders have studied them for decades.
For more than 40 years, researchers have identified multiple variants (alleles) of the GLU-B1 gene, which encodes two high-molecular-weight glutenin subunits that are key to the quality of wheat-based products. The Catalogue of Gene Symbols for Wheat lists up to 98 alleles (different versions of the GLU-B1 gene). Until now, however, not all the alleles identified in wheat from around the world had been compared with one another.
Researchers from the Department of Genetics at the University of Córdoba—Francisco Andrade, Juan Bautista Álvarez and Carlos Guzmán—conducted a genetic review to check whether the reported variability was accurate or had been overestimated. "We collected wheats carrying these alleles from all over the world, studied their GLU-B1 variants, and compared them with each other," Guzmán said. Following this genetic audit, "we found that this variability was overestimated and that many of the alleles were duplicated or triplicated when we compared them with each other.
Of the 98 alleles recorded, the actual variability is less than half," Andrade said. Verifying the genetic variability of this gene, which is key to gluten quality, required genetic detective work. After searching the scientific literature in which the alleles were identified, the team contacted germplasm banks around the world to obtain wheat from 33 countries.
The team reviewed and curated wheat from countries including Nepal, Ethiopia and Mexico to create a master set (a representative set of wheats) for breeders who want to use these alleles to improve wheat quality. "Now, teams that are going to conduct studies with the different versions of this gene will only have to go to a germplasm bank, where the genetic material representing the variability of that gene will be held. All the wheats will be available together as a single collection with their alleles identified and without duplication," Guzmán said.
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