THE EFFECTS OF HMW AND LMW SUBUNITS OF GLUTENIN AND OF GLIADINS ON THE TECHNOLOGICAL QUALITY OF PROGENY FROM 4 CROSSES BETWEEN POOR BREADMAKING QUALITY AND STRONG WHEAT CULTIVARS

Four F4 populations: Florence Aurore x Armada (FA x A), Armada x Florence Aurore (A x FA), Rex x Corin (R x C) and Corin x Rex (C x R) were derived from reciprocal crosses between strong wheat cultivars (FA, R) and poor breadmaking wheats (A, C). Protein content, Zeleny sedimentation, Pelshenke swelling and Chopin Alveograph tests were used to evaluate the quality of the 120 to 180 lines comprising each family. The direction of the cross had no significant effect on protein content. Analysis of gliadin polypeptides by APAGE of HMW subunits of glutenin by SDS—PAGE and of LMW subunits of glutenin by two-step one-dimensional SDS—PAGE enabled an assessment of the allelic diversity of these proteins and analysis of their effects on the quality of the lines in these paired groups. For the Glu-A1, Glu-B1 and Glu-D1 loci, at which the HMW subunits of glutenin are encoded, and for the Glu-A3, Glu-B3 and Glu-D3 loci, at which the LMW subunits of glutenin are encoded, the alleles provided by the high-quality wheats FA and R had a significant favourable effect on both dough strength and tenacity and on the Pelshenke test values. Recombinants between the Gli-B1 and Glu-B3 loci were identified, which appeared to confirm that gliadins do affect quality. Alleles at the Gli-1 locus, studied with the two first families (FA x A and A x FA), had higher additive effects on dough strength, tenacity and swelling than those at the Glu-A3 and Glu-B3 loci. © 1992, Academic Press Limited. All rights reserved.