BIOTECHNOLOGY OF WHEAT QUALITY

Wheat gluten proteins are largely responsible for the viscoelastic pro perties that allow doughs to be processed into bread and various other food products including cakes, biscuits (cookies), pasta and noodles. Detailed biochemical and biophysical studies are revealing details of the molecular structures and interactions of the individual gluten pr oteins, and their roles in determining the functional properties of gl uten. In particular, one group of gluten proteins, the high molecular weight (HMW) subunits of glutenin, have been studied in detail because of their role in determining the strength (elasticity) of doughs. The development of robust transformation systems for bread wheat is now a llowing the role of the HMW subunits to be explored experimentally, by manipulating their amount and composition in transgenic plants. Such studies should lead to improvement of the processing properties of whe at for traditional end uses and the development of novel end uses in f ood processing or as raw material for other industries.