Allelic diversity of HMW and LMW glutenin subunits and omega-gliadins in French bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Wheat endosperm storage proteins, namely gliadins and glutenins, are the major components of gluten. They play an important role in dough properties and in bread making quality in various wheat varieties. In the present study, the different alleles encoded at the 6 glutenin loci and at 3 -gliadin loci were identified from a set of 200 hexaploid wheat cultivars grown primarily in France using SDS PAGE. At Glu-A1, Glu-B1 and Glu-D1, encoding high molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS), 3, 8 and 5 alleles were observed respectively. Low molecular weight glutenin subunits (LMW-GS) displayed similar polymorphism, as 5 and 11 alleles were identified at loci Glu-A3 and Glu-B3 respectively. Four alleles were observed at Glu-D3 loci. Omega-gliadin diversity was also very high, as 7, 13 and 9 alleles were found at Gli-A1, Gli-B1 and Gli-D1, respectively. A total of 147 (or 149) patterns resulted from the genetic combination of the alleles encoding at the six glutenin loci (or Glu-1 and Gli-1 loci). Although Glu-1 and Glu-3 loci were located on different chromosome arms and were theoretically independent, some associations were revealed due to pedigree relatedness between some French wheat cultivars. The usefulness of allelic identification of LMW-GS together with HMW-GS and gliadins for future genetic and technological wheat improvement is discussed.