Amylase Trypsin Inhibitors (ATIs) in a Selection of Ancient and Modern Wheat: Effect of Genotype and Growing Environment on Inhibitory Activities.

Wheat amylase-trypsin inhibitors (ATIs) are a family of plant defense proteins with an important role in human health for their involvement in allergies, celiac disease and non-celiac wheat sensitivity. Information about the differences in ATI activities among wheat genotypes and the influence of the growing environment is scarce. Therefore, ten selected wheat accessions with different ploidy level and year of release, previously characterized for their ATI gene sequences, were grown during three consecutive crop years at two growing areas and used for in vitro ATI activities. The contributions of the genotype and the crop year were significant for both activities. The hexaploid wheat genotypes showed the highest inhibitory activities. Einkorn had a peculiar behavior showing the lowest alpha-amylase inhibitory activity, but the highest trypsin inhibitory activity. It was not possible to observe any trend in ATI activities as a function of the release year of the wheat samples. The two inhibitory activities were differently affected by the growing conditions and were negatively correlated with the protein content. This information can be important in understanding the extent of variation of ATI inhibitory properties in relation to the wheat genotype and the growing environment and the impact of ATIs, if any, on human health and nutrition.

Phenolic acids of modern and ancient grains: Effect on in vitro cell model.

BACKGROUND: The gastrointestinal tract establishes a barrier between the external and internal compartments. When this barrier is disrupted, an inflammatory cascade promotes intestinal inflammation and the development of several intestinal diseases. Plant-derived polyphenols are health-promoting phytochemicals with a role in the regulation of the intestinal barrier and in the prevention of intestinal inflammatory diseases. Modern wheat-breeding programs have been focused primarily on yield improvement rather than nutritional and functional proprieties. Research that aims to characterize the phytochemical profile of wheat varieties and their healthy proprieties could therefore provide new prospects for the genetic improvement of the genus Triticum. In the present work, the effects of phenolic compounds extracted from nine soft and seven durum wheat varieties were studied for their polyphenol content and antioxidant activity. Experiments were conducted to study their effects on cell proliferation and wound healing in three different cell lines: mouse fibroblasts (L929), intestinal human cells (Caco2), and human monocytes (U937). RESULTS: Discriminant analysis evidenced differences between soft and durum wheat phenolic compounds. Among the soft varieties, it was possible to identify clusters in which ancient wheat varieties showed different properties from modern ones, whereas no evident clusters were detected among durum varieties. CONCLUSION: Taken together, these results suggest that the selection of specific wheat grains based on their nutritional parameters will help in the design of diets with protective effects against chronic and inflammatory diseases. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.

An Interlaboratory Comparative Study on the Quantitative Determination of Glyphosate at Low Levels in Wheat Flour.

In recent years, the use of glyphosate has dramatically increased worldwide, and there is growing concern about contamination of organic products caused by its heavy use on neighboring fields. Glyphosate is found as a residue not only in soil, plants, and groundwater but also in humans and animals. Considering the controversy on glyphosate maximum residue level in foodstuff and the difficulties in its analytical determination, the main purpose of the present paper was to investigate the competence and accuracy of 13 accredited European laboratories in determining glyphosate in wheat flour at a level close to their reporting limit of 10 µg/kg. According to the results of this performance assessment, the laboratories were not able to quantify glyphosate at trace levels. Therefore, their specified reporting limits of 10 µg/kg were not supported by their results, and a reporting limit of around 50 µg/kg of glyphosate in flour seems to be more appropriate to guarantee reliable and robust results. The widespread use of glyphosate and its harmfulness to humans make its detection at trace levels a primary goal for analytical laboratories. This is achievable through the improvement of QA and/or the optimization of the method of analysis used for glyphosate detection.

Lunasin in wheat: a chemical and molecular study on its presence or absence.

Lunasin is a peptide whose anticancer properties are widely reported. Originally isolated from soybean seeds, lunasin was also found in cereal (wheat, rye, barley and Triticale), Solanum and amaranthus seeds. However, it was recently reported that searches of transcript and DNA sequence databases for wheat and other cereals failed to identify sequences with similarity to those encoding the lunasin peptide in soy. In order to clarify the presence or absence of lunasin in wheat varieties, a broad investigation based on chemical (LC-ESI-MS) and molecular (PCR) analyses was conducted. Both approaches pointed out the absence of lunasin in the investigated wheat genotypes; in particular no compounds with a molecular weight similar to that of lunasin standard and no lunasin-related sequences were found in the analysed wheat samples. These findings confirm the hypothesis, reported in recent researches, that lunasin is not a wheat-derived peptide.

SED1 gene length and sequence polymorphisms in feral strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The SED1 gene (YDR077W), coding for the major cell wall glycoprotein of Saccharomyces cerevisiae stationary-phase cells, contains two blocks of tandem repeat units located within two distinct regions of the nucleotide sequence. A PCR survey of the SED1 open reading frames (ORFs) of 186 previously uncharacterized grape must isolates of S. cerevisiae yielded 13 PCR profiles arising from different combinations of seven SED1 length variants in individuals homozygous or heterozygous for the gene. Comparison of the nucleotide sequences of a group of representatives of each of the seven length variants with those of S288C and the type strain, CBS1171, unequivocally identified them as SED1 alleles and provided evidence for the presence of two minisatellite-like sequences, variable in length, within the ORF of an S. cerevisiae gene. The segregation analyses of the SED1 length variants and other genetic markers in 13 isolates representative of each PCR profile suggested that molecular mechanisms involved in minisatellite expansion and contraction may be responsible for SED1 heterozygosities within a population of homothallic must isolates of S. cerevisiae.