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Research has shed light on long-standing questions about how
starch grains are formed in the seeds of tritic crops – wheat, barley, and rye
– unlocking a range of potential benefits for many industries and human health.
Starch in wheat, maize, rice, and potatoes is a vital
energy-giving part of our diet and a key ingredient in many industrial
applications from brewing and baking to the production of paper, glue,
textiles, and construction materials.
Starch granules of different crops vary greatly in size and
shape. Wheat starch (and those of other Triticeae) uniquely has two distinct
types of granules: large A-type granules and smaller B-type granules.
The ratio of A- and B-type granules can affect the quality of
wheat-based foods, such as bread and pasta. The two types of granules also
present a problem for the starch manufacturing industry because many of the
smaller B-type granules are lost and therefore wasted during the milling
process. Further, too many B-type starch granules in barley can cause a hazy or
cloudy appearance in beer because they do not get digested and filtered out
during the brewing process.
New research published in the journal The Plant Cell by the
group of Dr. David Seung at the John Innes Centre has made a breakthrough in
solving this problem.
The team used genomic and experimental techniques to show that
A- and B-type granules are formed by two distinct mechanisms.
By identifying an enzyme involved in B-type granule initiation
and by then using conventional plant breeding techniques to remove this
protein, they were able to produce wheat with low or no B-granules -- with no
penalties on plant development and without reducing the overall starch content.
Added to previous studies by this group which have shed light on
the shape and formation of A-type granules, the discovery has major
implications says the first author of the study Dr. Nitin Uttam Kamble:
"We discovered that the ubiquitous enzyme, (PHS1) is
crucial for the formation of B-type granules in wheat. This is a scientific
breakthrough because decades of research on this enzyme have failed to find a
clear role for PHS1 in plants, and it shows that the A- and B-type granules of
wheat form via different biochemical mechanisms. We can now use this knowledge
to create variations in starch for different food and industrial
applications."
Dr. David Seung, a group leader at the John Innes Centre added:
"Industry does not generally like heterogeneity; it wants something nice
and even to process smoothly, and having these different types of starch
granules in wheat has always represented a challenge.
"So, for us to discover the enzyme responsible for making
the smaller granule population and to be able to use our breeding platform to
reduce the number of B-type granules will hopefully be of great interest to
many industry users.
"Combined together with our previous work, we now have a
panel of diverse, novel wheat starches that vary in granule morphology, and
these have diverse physical and chemical properties. We now invite businesses
to work with us to investigate the potential benefits of these starches, such
as in milling, pasta- and breadmaking."
Starch is the main dietary carbohydrate in food eaten across the
globe and consists of tiny semi-crystalline granules formed of simple sugar chains.
In cereals starch granules form in the endosperm part of the seed.
As a raw material, starch is used in wallpaper, textiles,
building materials, pharmaceuticals, glues, and thickeners.
Wheat and its relatives contribute more than one-third of starch
used for European industry purposes. Potato and maize starch have different
compositions and granule morphology to those in the Triticeae.
Over the years industry has gone to the expense of salvaging
methods to solve the problem of mixtures of large A-type and small B-type
granules including using multiple filtrations to catch granules lost during
processing. Removing the requirement for these processing steps will reduce
costs and improve product performance.
See more…
Source:
Online/GFMM
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