Comparative Quality Assessment of Five Bread Wheat and Five Barley Cultivars Grown in Romania

Abstract

Cereals whole grains contain vitamins, phytochemicals, antioxidants, resistant starch, and minerals with potential benefits to human health. The consumption of whole grains is correlated with a lowered risk of the most important chronic diseases, including type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and some cancers. This study aimed to characterize and evaluate the content of five cultivars of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and five cultivars of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) obtained by conventional plant breeding using crossing and selection methods. The novelty and the purpose of this research was to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze these ten cultivars from Romania and to show the importance of, and the changes produced by, crossing and selection methods when these are aimed at the physiological or morphological development of the cultivars. Studies based on gluten dosing; spectrophotometry using Bradford, fructan and protein dosing; Kjeldahl protein dosing; GC-MS/MS-protein and amino acid dosing; and identification of protein fractions using polyacrylamide gel electrophoretic method were conducted. This study demonstrates the possibility of developing future cultivars using conventional methods of improvement to modify the content and composition of nutrients to increase their health benefits.

Keywords: Hordeum vulgare L.; Triticum aestivum L.; conventional plant breeding; human health; nutritional knowledge.

Figure 1

The calibration curves in (a) tris-glycine and (b) distilled water.

Figure 2

The calibration curve for dosing of fructans.

Figure 3

Polyacrylamide Gel Staining Steps Using Coomassie Brilliant Blue G-250^® and Thermo Scientific Pierce Silver Stain^® Dye.

Figure 4

Polyacrylamide gels after migration of colored samples with Coomassie Brilliant Blue G-250^® and Thermo Scientific Pierce Silver Stain^® (M-Thermo molecular marker (kDa); 1—Simbol in tris-glycine; 2—Simbol in distilled water; 3—Pitar in tris-glycine; 4—Pitar in distilled water; 5—Pajura in tris-glycine; 6—Pajura in distilled water; 7—Onix in tris-glycine; 8—Onix in distilled water; 9—Ametist in tris-glycine; 10—Ametist in distilled water; 11—Litera in tris-glycine; 12—Litera in distilled water; 13—Smarald in tris-glycine; 14—Smarald in distilled water; 15—Dropia in tris-glycine; 16—Dropia in distilled water; 17—Glosa in tris-glycine; 18—Glosa in distilled water; 19—Dana in tris-glycine; 20—Dana in distilled water.).