Variation in Friabilin Composition as Determined by A-PAGE Fractionation and PCR Amplification, and its Relationship to Grain Hardness in Bread Wheat

A-PAGE fractionation of starch granule proteins from 63 bread wheat cultivars with contrasting grain texture characteristics revealed two prominent polypeptides and three minor ones, approximately 15 kDa in size. These proteins were found to be encoded by genes on the short arm of chromosome 5D. The two major friabilin components were assumed to correspond to puroindolines a and b (pinA and pinB), as suggested by PCR amplification of genes coding for pinA, glycine-type or serine-type pinB. Two electrophoretic patterns for pinA (presence vs absence) and three patterns for pinB were obtained by A-PAGE. In cultivars with pinA (allele Pina-D1a), pinB was found to be encoded by wild-type Pinb-D1a, serine-type Pinb-D1b or by the novel glycine-type b1 allele. Cultivars lacking pinA (allele Pina-D1b) were shown to contain eitherPinb-D1a or the novel b2 allele, both alleles coding for glycine-type pinB. The intensity of pinB in A-PAGE gels was found to be associated with grain hardness as determined by the SKCS method. Cultivars lacking pinA had the highest SKCS values, suggesting that both pinA and pinB may affect grain texture. In the presence of pinA, cultivars with wild-type allelePinb-D1a had soft grain texture, whereas those with alleles Pinb-D1b or b1 showed increased grain hardness. It is suggested that allele b1 affects the interaction of pinB with starch granules because of a sequence mutation different from the glycine-to-serine change.