Proteins and Metabolites as Indicators of Flours Quality and Nutritional Properties of Two Durum Wheat Varieties Grown in Different Italian Locations

Abstract

Durum wheat is an important food source in Mediterranean countries, and Italy is the major producer of durum wheat in Europe. The quality of durum wheat flours depends on the type and amount of gluten proteins and starch while flour nutritional value rests on metabolite contents such as polyphenols. In this work, two Italian cultivars, Iride and Svevo, were analyzed for two years (2016–2017) in four Italian regions to explore how the environment affects: (i) reserve proteome; (ii) starch content and composition; and (iii) free, conjugated, bound phenolics and antioxidant capacity. The impact of environmental and meteorological conditions was significant for many traits. Regardless of the cultivation site, in 2017, a year with less rainfall and a higher temperature during grain filling, there was an increase in low molecular weight glutenins, in the glutenin/gliadin ratio and in the A-type starch granules size, all parameters of higher technological quality. In the same year, the cultivars showed higher amounts of polyphenols and antioxidant capacity. In conclusion, the two wheat cultivars, selected for their medium to high yield and their good quality, had higher performances in 2017 regardless of their sowing locations.

Factors Affecting the Nutritional, Health, and Technological Quality of Durum Wheat for Pasta-Making: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Furthermore, a number of studies considered in this review were focalised on the genotype effects and/or genotype x environment effects on phenolic compounds ’ content and quality [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 58 , 60 , 104 , 107 , 108 , 111 , 112 ]. Specifically, the interest in such grain phytochemicals is linked to their strong antiradical activity, which can contribute to protecting humans against various degenerative diseases [ 20 ].…”

“…To overcome these drawbacks typical of wholemeal products, Sobota et al [ 111 ] suggested using a common wheat bran additive of up to 30% and favoring wheat bran with fine and uniform granulation and possibly high content of gluten.…”

Biofertilisation with a consortium of growth‐promoting bacterial strains improves the nutritional status of wheat grain under control, drought, and salinity stress conditions

“…Abiotic stresses are increasingly recognised as a serious and worldwide concern in sustainable wheat production by declining grain yield and quality via reduced end‐use functional properties such as the content of carbohydrates and proteins (Riaz et al, 2021). Besides the genetic effects, there is a consensus among researchers that grain yield and quality in cereals are influenced not only by changes in the content of proteins, starch, and lipids in the grains and their interactions under stress but also by the content of primary and secondary metabolites (Chen et al, 2020; Graziano et al, 2020). Using metabolite profiling to analyse the metabolite composition of complex plant matrices, researchers have been able to describe the biological and biochemical composition of grains and understand the impact of various biological conditions (Beleggia et al, 2013; Zhen et al, 2016).…”

Multi-Environment Screening of Durum Wheat Genotypes for Drought Tolerance in Changing Climatic Events

“…Among cereal crops, durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) is the 10th most commonly cultivated cereal worldwide and one of the most important food crops in the Mediterranean Rim with an important role in the human diet [1,2]. However, its production is threatened by climate change and extreme weather events [3][4][5]: North Africa, including Tunisia, is recognized as a climate change hotspot region [6][7][8] and is, therefore, particularly vulnerable to drought stress [9][10][11][12][13], which limits growth, development, and crop yield [14][15][16][17].…”