The Smart Carbohydrate Centre

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The nature of the starch in barley and wheat seeds is likely to influence profoundly the quality of flour and malt, the health-promoting properties of foods and the industrial value of extracted starch. However, little is known about the impact of genetic variation for starch properties on these uses of cereal grains, and this potential source of useful variation for breeding improved varieties of wheat and barley is not being exploited. To address this problem, we propose a systematic approach to the generation, characterisation and exploitation of variation in starch properties in barley and wheat.

For barley we have a large collection of starch mutants, some of which have clear commercial potential. We will characterise the starches of these lines, and provide the information to an advisory Consortium of umbrella organisations of breeders and end-users of cereals. Advice from the Consortium will be used to prioritise which mutations to take forward. For the selected mutations we will use gene-based mapping and transcript-based cloning to discover the mutant genes, then introduce them into elite lines of barley using haplotype tags and mapped SSRs. The elite lines will be further analysed in collaboration with the Consortium at the BC2F4 stage. Major outputs will be prebreeding material with starch characteristics of specific value to end-users, likely to include brewers, distillers, and manufacturers of food and biodegradable packaging and plastics.

For wheat we will use TILLING to select knockout mutations in the three genes encoding isoamylase1, then combine the mutations in a single line. We will initiate further TILLING for mutations in other genes likely to affect starch properties, and characterise starches in mutant diploid wheats to provide more information on sources of variation.

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