Starch Properties of a Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Mutant with an Altered Flour-pasting Profile

Ethyl methanesulphonate treatment of seeds from cultivar Kanto 107 lacking Wx-A1 and Wx-B1 proteins induced a mutant, named K107Afpp4, showing an altered flour-pasting profile, i.ea markedly increased viscosity at a low temperature and a decreased peak time in Rapid Visco Analyser measurement. The colour of the iodine complex of the isolated starch from the mutant remained bluish-purple but its λ_maxdecreased to 584 nm from 601 nm shown by the wild type Kanto 107. The absorbance at 680 nm (blue value) of the mutant starch decreased to 0·206 from 0·324 for Kanto 107. The amylose content of K107Afpp4 starch was 12·7% measured by concanavalin A method, compared to 21·9% for the wild type. The apparent amylose content of the mutant starch measured by amperometric titration was 15·9% while that of Kanto 107 was 25·3%. Gel permeation chromatography showed that the mutant starch has a decreased amount of lower molecular weight fractions than starch from the wild type. Differential scanning calorimetry indicated that mutant starch has a higher gelatinisation peak temperature, 61·8 °C, than the wild type, 59·5 °C. The mutant will be useful as a genetic resource for altering wheat starch/flour properties and for clarifying the relationship between amylose content and wheat quality.