STUDIES OF HIGH-MOLECULAR-WEIGHT GLUTENIN SUBUNITS AND THEIR ENCODING GENES

Our knowledge of the biochemical and genetical aspects of high molecular weight (HMW) glutenin subunits has been possible through the extensive use of electrophoretic techniques and of SDS-PAGE in particular; in fact by using this technique the existence of allelic variation at each of the three Glu-1 loci encoding HMW glutenin subunits in bread wheat and the influence they have in determining qualitative properties have been firmly established (Payne, 1987). Use of different and more sophisticated biochemical techniques, such as reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) or molecular studies conducted with new tools, such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and nucleotide sequence analysis, are constantly supplying more information on these proteins and their encoding genes.