Wheat Grain Proteomics for the Food Industry

Abstract

The analysis of protein in wheat grain is now a high priority because this provides the major source of protein utilized in the food industry. The novel aspects in this area that are of particular interest are the advances in wheat and barley genomics which now provide a basis for a whole-of-proteome approach to the analysis of the wheat grain. Studies reviewing food proteomics related to aspects of wheat and covering plant proteomics for cereal research, as well as the potential in new methodologies are provided. Although rice proteomics is the most advanced database available for analysis it is now clear that when this is taken together with the rapidly developing dataset of information on wheat and barley grain protein new insights are generated to the many different attributes of these cereal proteins. It is now feasible to identify many wheat and barley proteins in 2DE and mass spectroscopy analysis based on homology between wheat/barley expressed genes and rice/Arabidopsis genes. Case studies are described where this fundamental information has provided new insights and faster diagnostics for attributes associated with wheat protein.