Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the most widely consumed food crop in the world, being processed to give a range of breads, other baked goods, pasta, and noodles. In wheat, glutenin macropolymers (GMP), consisting of spherical glutenin particles, are a major component of the grain and an important factor affecting the processing quality of wheat (Don et al. 2005). Previous studies demonstrated that the amount of GMP in wheat flour correlates closely with baking quality (Weegels et al. 1996). Besides GMP content, GMP particle size and distribution are important in wheat bread-making quality. Evidence indicates that GMP particle size strongly correlates with dough development time (Don et al. 2006).GMP consists of high molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) linked with low molecular weight glutenin subunits (LMW-GS) through disulfide bonds. HMW-GS are encoded by polymorphic genes at the Glu-1 loci on the long arms of group 1 chromosomes. Hexaploid wheat usually contains 3-5 subunits, zero or one encoded by Glu-A1, one or two by Glu-B1 and two by Glu-D1 (Lawrence and Payne 1983). Of the glutenin subunits, composition of HMW-GS has been assured to contribute greatly to bread-making quality. Meanwhile, HMW-GS concentration is also considered a very important grain quality trait in wheat (Yue et al. 2007).Accumulations of HMW-GS and GMP in wheat grains are both genetically and environmentally controlled (Irmak et al. 2008). Of the different environmental effects, one of the greatest in certain regions (e.g. in northern China) is thought to be that of soil water stress (Ma et al. 2007). Water stress is known to influence dry matter production as well as quality of wheat (Yang et al. 2011). Drought promotes HMW-GS accumulation in the early grain filling stage, whereas the opposite effect occurs at late grain filling (Jiang et al. 2009). Both
ABSTRACTAccumulations of high molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) and glutenin macropolymer (GMP) in wheat grains are important indicators of grain quality. Two near-isogenic wheat lines, Line 11 (HMW-GS null, 7 + 9, 5 + 10) and Line 12 (HMW-GS null, 17 + 18, 5 + 10), were used to evaluate the impacts of different water supply on HMW-GS and GMP accumulation, and the GMP particle distributions in the grains. Three irrigation levels were implemented in a field and a pot experiment, respectively. Results indicated that drought is beneficial for grain desiccation in the two wheat lines at late filling stage. Compared to mild and excess watering, the total HMW-GS concentration at maturity was much lower when subjected to soil water deficit. Both drought and excess watering led to a reduced glutenin particle size and GMP content at maturity, indicating that a mild water supply could promote the accumulation of GMP and formation of lager glutenin particles. As opposed to Line 12, Line 11 showed an increase in accumulation of GMP and larger glutenin polymers.