ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Breeding
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1658088
Molecular characterization of novel high molecular weight glutenin subunit genes from Aegilops tauschii
Provisionally accepted
Huijun Peng1Linlin Lv1Qiuwen Lu1Guojian Zhao2Jiajia Ren2Mian Abdur Rehman Arif3Yarui Su1
Ruiru Cheng1*Dale Zhang1- 1Henan University, Kaifeng, China
- 2Kaifeng Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Kaifeng, China
- 3Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology, Faisalabad, Pakistan
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Glu-D1 locus is known to contribute the most to gluten quality in common wheat. Aegilops tauschii, as a donor species of common wheat D genome, is of great significance for improving wheat flour processing quality by exploring and utilizing its excellent quality-related genes. In this study, high-molecular-weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS) compositions of 173 Aegilops tauschii accessions from the Middle East, Central Asia, and Xinjiang were analyzed using sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) technology. A total of 13 subunit types were detected at the Glu-D1 t locus, including the unique subunit types absent in common wheat. Unexpectedly, all these Ae. tauschii accessions lacked the extra cysteine residue at position 118 in their Glu-1Dx subunits detected by a specific functional marker dCAPS5. To determine whether other sites of Glu-D1t subunits in Ae. tauschii contain the extra cysteine residue, the grains RNA of Ae. tauschii accessions with rare subunit types at different days post-anthesis (6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th, 21st, and 24th days) were mixed and sequenced using third-generation (PacBio) transcriptome sequencing technology. A total of 12 new HMW-GS genes were obtained, including 6 genes each for Glu-D1x and Glu-D1y. Sequence alignment analysis revealed the extra cysteine residue was not observed in the protein sequences deduced by 12 new HMW-GS genes. Interestingly, HMW-GS of Ae. tauschii accessions AY16 and AY49 had longer repetitive domain insertions, while those of AY16 and AY53 exhibited higher α-helix and β-strand contents, which may positively influence dough properties. Additionally, the relative content of HMW-GS in AY11, AY32, and AY49 was significantly higher than that of the Glu-D1 subunits in wheat variety Xinmai 26 with the strong gluten quality, favoring the formation of larger glutenin polymers. From this point of view, Ae. tauschii, as a potentially valuable germplasm resource, can provide rich subunit gene resources for quality breeding in common wheat.
Keywords: Aegilops tauschii, High molecular weight glutenin subunit, RNA sequencing, Protein secondary structure prediction, SDS-PAGE
Received: 02 Jul 2025; Accepted: 03 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Peng, Lv, Lu, Zhao, Ren, Rehman Arif, Su, Cheng and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ruiru Cheng, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
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