Effects of amounts of HMW glutenin subunits determined by capillary electrophoresis on technological properties in wheat doubled haploids

BACKGROUND: Knowledge of the types and amounts of individual HMW glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) is important for predicting technological quality. In this study, 228 wheat doubled haploids were compared in respect of HMW-GS composition, seed protein content, flour yield, rheological properties of dough, and loaf properties. The quantitative and qualitative composition of particular HMW-GS was determined by CE. The relative amounts of x-type and y-type subunits encoded by individual Glu-1 loci were considered. RESULTS: The results show that the amounts of some pairs x + y of HMW-GS are correlated with technological properties. The importance of quantities of particular pairs of HMW-GS for technological values depends on allele compositions in all the Glu-1 loci. Positive correlation was found between the amount of subunits Ax1, Ax2*, Bx7 + By8 or Dx5 + Dy10 and loaf volume (r = 0.215–0.618, P < 0.05). The influence of an increasing amount of Ax1 was positively correlated with dough softening (r = 0.451, P < 0.01) and negatively with dough development time (r = − 0.209, P < 0.05) and stability (r = − 0.351, P < 0.01), whereas for subunit Ax2* these associations were opposite. CONCLUSION: The results confirm the occurrence of epistatic interactions between alleles of Glu-1 loci. The effects of amounts of HMW subunits on bread-making quality should be considered only within glutenin subunit compositions. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry