Bread wheat can be used to make different products thanks to the presence of gluten, a protein network that confers unique visco-elastic properties to wheat doughs. Gluten is composed by gliadins and glutenins. The glutenins can be further divided into high and low-molecular-weight glutenins (HMWGs and LMWGs, respectively) and are encoded by Glu-1 and Glu-3 loci. The variability of these genes is associated with differences in quality. Because of this, the identification of novel glutenin alleles is still an important target. In this study, 57 haplotypes or glutenin combinations were registered among a set of 158 Iranian landraces and five novel HMWGs alleles were identified. The landraces were also characterized for several quality traits, including gluten quality, which allowed to associate the different glutenin alleles with low or high quality. Other quality traits examined were iron, zinc, and phytate contents, which are intimately related with the nutritional quality. Important variation for these components was found as well as for the phytate:iron/zinc molar ratios (related to the potential bioavailability of these important micronutrients). The landraces identified in the present study (some of them combining high gluten quality with low phytate:zinc values) could be a useful resource for breeders who aim to improve the wheat end-use quality and especially the content of zinc and its relative bioavailability.

Grain hardness and starch are two of the most important factors that determine the end-use quality of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain. The grain hardness and amylose content are controlled by the puroindolines (Pina-D1 and Pinb-D1) genes, located on chromosomes 5D, and waxy (Wx-A1, -B1 and -D1) genes, located on chromosomes 7A, 4A and 7D. A total of 160 Iranian landraces from the Germplasm Bank of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center were evaluated for grain hardness using near infrared spectroscopy to predict the particle size index (PSI). In addition, molecular markers were used to evaluate the states of the corresponding genes. Eight accessions were found to have a hard texture (predicted PSI < 45%); however, only two could be explained by null alleles either in Pina-D1 or Pinb-D1. Additionally, 152 accessions had semi-hard textures (predicted PSI range of 45% to 55%). For the Wx gene, only one accession (CWI 67665) showed the null Wx-D1b allele, while two accessions (CWI 67747 and CWI 57684) were null for Wx-B1b. Single nucleotide polymorphism and sequence tag site marker techniques were used. Our findings further indicate the importance of using these landraces for grain quality improvement in breeding programs.

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