Development of durum and bread wheat with increased number of high molecular weight glutenin subunits.

The number of high molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) present in a bread and a durum wheat cultivar was increased by replacing the null allele present at the Glu­A 1 locus with alleles expressing one or two HMW-GS. In particular near-isogenic lines (NIL) with five and six HMW-GS have been obtained in the bread wheat cultivar Pegaso; similarly a NIL with four HMW-GS has been produced in the durum wheat cultivar Svevo, which has normally only two subunits encoded by genes at the Glu-BJ locus. The effect of such increase in the number of HMW-GS on the amount of polymeric insoluble glutenin, which has been demonstrated to be strictly related to flour technological properties, has been determined by size exclusion high performance liquid chromatography (SE-HPLC).