Genetic and Environmental Factors Associated to Glutenin Polymer Characteristics of Wheat

Abstract

The polymers of wheat glutenins are studied here using asymmetric flow field flow fractionation (A4F). Molecular mass (Mw), gyration radius (Rw), and the polydispersity index (PI) of polymers were measured over a four-year, multi-local wheat trial in France. The experiment, involving 11 locations and 192 cultivars, offered the opportunity to approach the genetic and environmental factors associated with the phenotypic values of the polymer characteristics. These characteristics, which were all highly influenced by environmental factors, exhibited low broad-sense heritability coefficients and were not influenced by grain protein content and grain hardness. The 31 alleles encoding the glutenin subunits explained only 17.1, 25.4, and 16.8% of the phenotypic values of Mw, Rw, and PI, respectively. The climatic data revealed that a 3.5 °C increase between locations of the daily average temperature, during the last month of the grain development, caused an increase of more than 189%, 242%, and 434% of the Mw, Rw, and PI, respectively. These findings have to be considered in regard to possible consequences of global warming and health concerns assigned to gluten. It is suggested that the molecular characteristics of glutenins be measured today, especially for research addressing non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS).

Molecular Weight Distribution of Polymeric Proteins in Wheat Grains: The Rheologically Active Polymers

“…As presented in Table 2 , polymeric proteins accumulated during wheat grain development are strongly under the control of growing conditions. This also confirm previous analyses showing that allelic diversity of HMW-GS and LMW-GS had less influence than environmental factors, such as temperature during the last month, on polymer characteristics [ 23 ]. Indeed, the ratio of variances (i.e., environmental variance/genetic variance) is here largely in favor of an environmental effect (σ 2 E /σ 2 G >16.0).…”

“…Considerable advances have been made over the last 30 years at a genetic level to better understand and/or to promote the interaction properties of prolamins (i.e., genetic control of the MWD of polymeric proteins, particularly by manipulating the allelic diversity of High Molecular Weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS)). However, it now appears that genetic variations of glutenins had less influence than environmental factors on polymer characteristics [ 23 ]. Irrespective of the environmental factors studied (i.e., nitrogen availability, sulfur fertilization, temperature and water regime), in most of these works, the effects observed are most often attributed to modifications in the synthesis activities of the various prolamins [i.e., gliadins vs. glutenins and/or HMW-GS vs. Low Molecular Weight glutenin subunits (LMW-GS)] resulting from modulation of the expression of storage protein genes [ 24 ].…”

Endoplasmic Reticulum-Mediated Protein Quality Control and Endoplasmic Reticulum-Associated Degradation Pathway Explain the Reduction of N-glycoprotein Level Under the Lead Stress

“…CrPDIx formed a large clade with PDI-F subfamily members. It was known that PDI could aid the correct folding and assembly of nascent proteins in ER to prevent the aggregation of proteins under some unfavorable environmental conditions, such as heat and drought stresses ( Branlard et al, 2020 ). The role of increased PDI protein was to enhance the salt tolerance of Medicago sativa L ( Rahman et al, 2015 ).…”

Wheat grain proteins: Past, present, and future

“…The protein bodies fuse during the later stages of grain development, with the gluten proteins within a single endosperm cell forming a continuous matrix. The growth and rearrangement of glutenin polymers, including the formation of disulfide bonds between individual polymers, may occur in the protein bodies and in the protein matrix during grain maturation, perhaps catalyzed by low‐molecular‐weight redox reagents (Branlard et al, 2020 ).…”