[Biochemical and molecular characterization of gliadins]

Abstract

Gliadins account for about 40-50% of the total proteins in wheat seeds and play an important role on the nutritional and processing quality of flour. Usually, gliadins could be divided into alpha- (alpha/beta-), gamma- and omega-groups, whereas the low-molecular-weigh (LMW) gliadins were novel seed storage proteins. The low-molecular-weight glutenin subunits (LMW-GSs) were also designated as gliadins in a few literatures. The genes encoding gliadins were mainly located on the short arms of group 6 and group 1 chromosomes, and not evenly distributed. Repetitive sequences covered most of un-coding regions, which attributed greatly to the evolution of wheat genome. Primary structure of each gliadin has been divided into several domains, and the long repetitive domains consisted of peptide motifs. Conserved cysteine residues mainly formed intramolecular disulphide bonds. The rare potential intermolecular disulphide bonds and the long repetitive domains played an important role in the wheat flour quality. There was a general idea that gliadin genes, even prolamin genes, have a common origin and subsequent divergence lead to the gene polymorphism. The gamma-gliadins have been considered to be the most ancient of the wheat prolamin family. Several elements in the 5'-flanking (e.g. CAAT and TATA box) and the 3'-flanking sequences had been detected, which had been shown necessary for the proper expression of gliadins.