Cereal Chem 67:176-182   |  VIEW ARTICLE

Physical and Structural Properties of Wheat Endosperm Associated with Grain Texture.

G. M. Glenn and R. M. Saunders. Copyright 1990 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

A method of sectioning raw wheat grain was developed to characterize the physical and structural properties of endosperm tissue from hard and soft wheat varieties. The thinnest possible cross section that remained intact was taken as a measurement of cohesiveness. Hard wheat sections typically were pliable, cohesive, and could be sliced less than 1 micrometer thick. Soft wheat sections less than 4 micrometers in thickness tended to crumble. Section thickness was used to classify 152 wheat samples using classification discriminant analysis. Structural features of the endosperm matrix that influenced cohesiveness were studied in the cross-sectional surfaces of wheat using scanning electron microscopy. Differences in cohesiveness within a sample were largely accounted for by intracellular space. Differences in cohesiveness of hard and soft wheat grains generally involved continuity of the protein matrix as well as starch-protein adhesion. A 15-kDa polypeptide from sodium dodecyl sulfate-extracted starch was evident only in soft wheat samples. Nevertheless, the intensity of the 15-kDa polypeptide did not reflect the textural hardness of wheat endosperm.