Digestibility of gluten proteins is reduced by baking and enhanced by starch digestion.

Scope: Resistance of proteins to gastrointestinal digestion may play a role in determining immune-mediated adverse reactions to foods. However, digestion studies have largely been restricted to purified proteins and the impact of food processing and food matrices on protein digestibility is poorly understood.

Methods And Results: Digestibility of a total gliadin fraction (TGF), flour (cv Hereward), and bread was assessed using in vitro batch digestion with simulated oral, gastric, and duodenal phases.

Effect of dough mixing on wheat endosperm cell walls.

Dough-derived cell wall fragments isolated by ultracentrifugation were largely derived from the starchy endosperm, with some fragments deriving from the aleurone and outer layers, as indicated by fluorescence microscopy. Dough mixing had little effect on the structure and composition of cell wall fragments compared to thin grain sections, as determined by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. These analyses confirmed that the fragments largely comprised water-unextractable arabinoxylan and β-glucan.

Spectroscopic analysis of diversity of Arabinoxylan structures in endosperm cell walls of wheat cultivars (Triticum aestivum) in the HEALTHGRAIN diversity collection.

Fifty bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars were selected from the HEALTHGRAIN germplasm collection based on variation in their contents of total and water-extractable arabinoxylan. FT-IR spectroscopic mapping of thin transverse sections of grain showed variation in cell wall arabinoxylan composition between the cultivars, from consisting almost entirely of low-substituted arabinoxylan (e.

Endosperm development in Brachypodium distachyon.

Grain development and its evolution in grasses remains poorly understood, despite cereals being our most important source of food. The grain, for which many grass species have been domesticated, is a single-seeded fruit with prominent and persistent endosperm. Brachypodium distachyon, a small wild grass, is being posited as a new model system for the temperate small grain cereals, but little is known about its endosperm development and how this compares with that of the domesticated cereals.

A novel transcriptomic approach to identify candidate genes for grain quality traits in wheat.

A novel methodology is described in which transcriptomics is combined with the measurement of bread-making quality and other agronomic traits for wheat genotypes grown in different environments (wet and cool or hot and dry conditions) to identify transcripts associated with these traits. Seven doubled haploid lines from the Spark x Rialto mapping population were selected to be matched for development and known alleles affecting quality. These were grown in polytunnels with different environments applied 14 days post-anthesis, and the whole experiment was repeated over 2 years.

FT-IR study of the Chara corallina cell wall under deformation.

Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) microspectroscopy was used to investigate both the chemical composition of, and the effects of an applied strain on, the structure of the Chara corallina cell wall. The inner layers of the cell wall are known to have a transverse cellulose orientation with a gradient through the thickness to longitudinal orientation in the older layers. In both the native state and following the removal of various biopolymers by a sequential extraction infrared dichroism was used to examine the orientation of different biopolymers in cell-wall samples subjected to longitudinal strain.

The effect of physical and chemical treatment on the mechanical properties of the cell wall of the alga Chara corallina.

Single large internode cells of the charophyte (giant alga) Chara corallina were dissected to give sheets of cell wall, which were then notched and their mechanical properties in tension determined. The cells were subjected to a thermal treatment in excess water (cf. cooking), which had little effect on strength but increased the stiffness, contrasting with the behaviour of higher-plant tissues.