Composition of polymeric proteins and bread-making quality of wheat lines with allelic HMW-GS differing in number of cysteines

Three lines of Australian wheat variety Avocet, two biotypes of Australian variety Halberd, and the Italian bread wheat cultivar Fiorello and its derived line were used to study the possible role of the Glu-B1 HMW-GS in polymeric protein composition and flour functionality. These sets of lines contain HMW-GS 7+8, 7+9, 20x+20y or 26+27. Subunit Bx7 has four cysteine residues, while subunit Bx20 has only two. Compared to Avocet A (7+8), line Avocet C (20x+20y) exhibited an increase in polymeric protein, a decrease in the gliadin-to-glutenin ratio, and a marked decrease in unextractable polymeric protein (UPP). Avocet C doughs exhibited greater extensibility and shorter Mixograph dough development times, and baked into smaller loaves compared to those from Avocet A. Similar differences were observed in comparisons between the two Fiorello lines and between the two Halberd biotypes that had differing Glu-B1 alleles. These results show that in closely related genotypes, the presence of the Bx7+By8 or Bx7+By9 HMW-GS instead of Bx20+By20 or Bx26+By27 is associated with higher UPP, higher dough strength and better bread-making performance. It is suggested that this could be due to the greater number of cysteines in the Bx7 subunit that are available for forming higher-molecular-weight glutenin polymer. This could give the possibility to manipulate dough properties and bread-making quality by utilizing HMW-GS alleles with varying numbers of cysteine residues.