Thus, α-gliadin genes can be assigned to specific chromosome loci according to their marked genomic differences [12] and [13]. Further analysis of group 6 nulli-tetrasomic lines of Chinese Spring confirmed the reliability of such assignment methods for α-gliadin genes [23]. In conclusion, α-gliadins not only play a major role in determining gluten quality, but comprise the major source of toxicity for CD patients, given that they contain most of the main toxic components. In addition, this multigenic family encodes extensive buy ABT-737 allelic variation that has been shown to be closely associated with flour quality [24] and [25]. Screening of new

allelic variants with specific profiles of α-gliadins from common wheat cultivars with good quality or from other valuable Triticeae species may accordingly aid in exploring

gene resources both for quality improvement and potential CD prevention. The objective of the current study selleck was to clone and characterize the novel full-ORF α-gliadin genes from common wheat cultivar Zhengmai 004, one of the major cultivars sown on a large scale in the weak-gluten wheat growing areas of China owing to its good quality and high and stable yield. To shed light on the structure–function relationships of a single α-gliadin gene, the prokaryotic expression in Escherichia coli of two genes differing in the number of cysteine residues was investigated by SDS-PAGE and Western blotting. Finally, the secondary structures of the full-ORF genes cloned in this study and other genes in the public database GenBank derived from common wheat and its relatives were

predicted and the typical secondary structure of α-gliadins was summarized. Seeds of Zhengmai 004 were kindly provided by Professor Hu Lin from the Wheat Research Institute of Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhengzhou, China. Genomic DNA was extracted from young leaves of 10–20 wheat seedlings grown in the greenhouse, using the cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) procedure. A pair of degenerate primers (F: 5′-GGA TCC ATG AAG ACC TTT CTC ATC CT-3′; R: 5′- AAG CTT TCA GTT RGT ACC GAA GAT GCC-3′) with respectively Bam H I and Hind III sites (underlined) at the 5′-end of each primer was designed according to the majority of the published open reading frame (ORF) sequences of α-gliadin genes in Clomifene GenBank. PCR was performed using LA Taq (TaKaRa, Dalian, China) with GC buffer (1 unit) in a 20-μL reaction volume containing approximately 50 ng of genomic DNA, 100 μmol L− 1 of each dNTP, and 0.5 μmol L− 1 of each primer. PCR cycling was at 94 °C for 4 min followed by 10 cycles of 94 °C for 30 s, 62 °C (Tm + 4 °C) for 45 s, 72 °C for 60 s, then 22 cycles of 94 °C for 30 s, 58 °C for 45 s, 72 °C for 60 s, and a final extension at 72 °C for 15 min. PCR products were separated on 1% agarose gels and the single target fragment was purified from the gels using Gel Extraction Kit Ver 2.0 (TaKaRa, Dalian, China).