Molecular characterization of bread quality contributing high and low-molecular-weight glutenin subunits in Pakistani spring wheat genotypes

To date, both quality related high-molecular-weight (HMW) and low-molecular-weight (LMW) glutenin genes associated with dough extensibility and viscoelasticity traits were investigated separately in wheat. Therefore, the present study was designed to characterize at molecular level, nine spring wheat genotypes for desirable bread quality attributes, using gene/allele-specific DNA markers for both HMW and LMW glutenin and validating these results by conducting different bread quality analysis. The PCR results indicated that UAF-10,137 and Akbar-19 genotypes carried those HMW & LMW-Gs alleles that had previously been associated with good bread quality. These genotypes had Ax2*, Bx7 + By8 and Dx5 + Dy10 allelic combinations at Glu-1 loci, while gluA3b and gluB3b alleles were only present in UAF-10,137 at Glu-3 loci. However, Akbar-19 only had gluB3b allele at Glu-3 loci. Furthermore, the PCR investigation in UAF-10,123, Subhani-21, UAF-10,136 and Dilkash-20 genotypes confirmed the presence of some unknown alleles at both Glu-1 and Glu-3 loci thus indicating moderate bread making quality. In contrary to this, UAF-9515 and M.H-21 showed the presence of unknown alleles at Glu-A1, Glu-B1, Glu-A3, Glu-B3 loci and showed poor performance for bread quality parameters. Similar results were observed by using various bread quality-related tests such as farinograph, extensograph, sedimentation and bread volume. The results of these tests were in line with the findings of molecular investigations performed on the same wheat genotypes. In conclusion, genotypes UAF-10,137 and Akbar-19 were identified for having good bread making quality attributes and can be used as parents or as a good source of bread quality genes/alleles in future breeding programs.