Abstract.
Wheat grain hardness is a major factor in the wheat end-product quality. Grain hardness in wheat affects such parameters as milling yield, starch damage and baking properties. A single locus determines whether wheat is hard or soft textured. This locus, termed Hardness (Ha), resides on the short arm of chromosome 5D. Sequence alterations in the tryptophan-rich proteins puroindoline a and b (PINA and PINB) are inseparably linked to hard textured grain, but their role in endosperm texture has been controversial. Here, we show that the pinB-D1b alteration, common in hard textured wheats, can be complemented by the expression of wild-type pinB-D1a in transformed plants. Transgenic wheat seeds expressing wild-type pinB were soft in phenotype, having greatly increased friabilin levels, and greatly decreased kernel hardness and damaged starch. These results indicate that the pinB-D1b alteration is most likely the causative Ha mutation in the majority of hard wheats.
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Beecher, .B., Bettge, .A., Smidansky, .E. et al. Expression of wild-type pinB sequence in transgenic wheat complements a hard phenotype. Theor Appl Genet 105, 870–877 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-002-1034-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-002-1034-x