PRODUCTION OF MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES TO GLUTEN PROTEINS AND THEIR USE IN DEVELOPING TESTS FOR GLUTEN QUALITY

There is a need for rapid, simple tests to give added assurance in glu ten quality evaluation which address the needs of plant breeders and t he milling and baking industry. As part of fundamental research into g luten protein structure-function relationships, a library of monoclona l antibodies (MAbs) has been developed to various gluten protein fract ions, including both high and low molecular weight subunits of gluteni n. The difficulties presented by wet-king with insoluble, heterogeneou s gluten proteins in raising MAbs of the requisite specificity are dis cussed. Several of the MAbs have been used to develop rapid immunoassa ys which are capable of analyzing a single sample in 10 min, and these have been applied to the quantification of total glutenin proteins, a nd high and low molecular weight subunits of glutenin in flour samples , illustrating the potential of immunotechnology for monitoring flour quality.