Source: Earthtimes.org via Checkbiotech

Molecular biologists at Anawah, based at Seattle, Washington, have developed a new strain of wheat using novel genetic modification method known as TILLING (targeting induced local lesions in genomes). The new strain yields large amount of amylopectin in its grains. Amylopectin is an insoluble, highly branched polysaccharide of high molecular weight found in plants. It is one of the two components of starch, the other being amylose (unbranched). Wheat usually contains more amount of amylose than amylopectin.

This newly obtained strain, also called as Waxy wheat, has become a quick favourite of food, biogum, paper and other such industries as its highly branched starch content imparts a firm texture and greater strength to the product.

Plant breeders had spent decades trying traditional methods to get this type of strain without much of success in their efforts. Molecular biologist Ann J. Slade and other researchers working at Anawah arrived at this strain by selectively screening for genetic mutations that inactivate enzymes involved in generating amylose. By reverse genetic engineering they finally obtained strains of wheat with reduced amounts of the unbranched polymer and more of amylopectins. Reverse genetic engineering of wheat strain was not easy. Wheat contains multiple sets of genes, making it extremely difficult to track induced mutations. Researchers therefore used the TILLING method which can identify new mutations in a polyploid plant such as wheat. TILLING uncovers inherent variation within an organism's genome and eliminates the need to introduce a foreign DNA to get a new strain.

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