The United States of America as Represented by the Secretary of

University of Minnesota

United States of America, as Represented by the Secretary of Agriculture

University of Hawai'i

Olin D Anderson

Ann E Blechl

David A Somers

Kimberly A Torbert

Howard W Rines

John I Stiles

James C Litts

John D Neill

Frank C Greene

The present invention is directed to methods of improving flour by altering glutenin content in seeds of plants, particularly wheat. The invention relates to methods of introducing a recombinant construct comprising a glutenin gene into a parental plant.

Glutenin genes and their uses

The invention provides methods and compositions for producing dough, preferably wheat dough, with particular viscoelastic properties and the use of such dough in products such as breads and noodles. Viscoelastic variation is effected by using flour milled from seed containing non-natural HMW glutenin subunits. In particular, HMW glutenin subunits comprising a non-natural repetitive domain having repeats which are non-natural in number and/or synthetic in sequence are used to control viscoelastic properties of dough. It is demonstrated that while controlling for termini and repeat sequence, modifying repeat number may be used to change dough properties such as viscoelasticity. The invention also provides recombinant genes encoding the subject HMW glutenin subunits, plants and seeds comprising such genes, methods of making such plants by genetic engineering, doughs and other wheat products with modified viscoelastic properties and methods of making such product using the disclosed compositions.

Altering wheat dough viscoelasticity with modified glutenins

The present invention is directed to methods of improving flour by altering glutenin content in seeds of wheat and non-wheat plants. The invention relates to methods of introducing a recombinant construct comprising a glutenin gene into a parental plant.

A strain of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been developed which, when grown under defined culture conditions, will produce protein indistinguishable from wheat gluten protein. This new yeast strain was developed by introducing a specially constructed autonomously replicating extrachromosomal genetic element, gluten plasmid pAY31, into the parent yeast strain. This plasmid is a circular DNA molecule, constructed by enzymic fusion of the following elements: (1) the E. coli plasmid pUC8 wherein the EcoRI site has been removed; (2) the autonomously replicating yeast sequence ARS1; (3) the yeast URA3 gene; (4) a modified yeast iso-1-cytochromic gene retaining the promoter region and transcription termination sequence, and wherein the protein coding sequences have been deleted and replaced with a synthetic EcoRI restriction site, the site at which the wheat gluten protein gene is cloned; and (5) a fragment of a wheat gluten protein gene which includes the amino acid coding region, translation initiation and termination sequence, and short flanking nucleotide sequences, but excludes transcription initiation and termination sequences. Wheat gluten protein synthesized by the new yeast strain can be used to supplement wheat and non-wheat flours for baked products and for use in diagnosis and treatment of illness in humans caused by wheat gluten proteins.

Yeast strains genetically engineered to produce wheat gluten proteins

Growing community of inventors

Pleasant Hill, CA, United States of America

Olin D Anderson