Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

In most regions of the world wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a staple food consumed as different products that are ethnically and regionally determined. Wheat flour when mixed with water form a viscoelastic dough a unique property of wheat and it allows to produce a diverse array of products for human consumption. The viscoelastic dough is due to formation of gluten proteins made up of gliadins extracted with 70% ethanol and the un-extractable glutenin fraction. In the last decade, wheat consumption has been associated with increase in obesity and associated diseases such as type2 diabetes and cardiovascular ailments. More recently, wheat has also been associated with adverse reactions such as allergies, some of which are well defined as celiac disease and other less well defined as non-celiac wheat sensitivity. The only clinically well diagnosed wheat sensitivity is Celiac Disease (CD), which occurs in about 1% of the population worldwide. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition resulting from the interaction of specific gluten polypeptides in individuals that are genetically predisposed. There have been some recent claims that wheat improvement over the years has enriched wheat gluten proteins of celiac disease causing epitopes. The proposed research has two objectives. (i) To systematically analyze the wheat gluten proteins in varieties developed during 150 years of wheat improvement in Canada. (ii) To assess the utility of recently developed genome editing technologies to develop wheat genotypes with reduced celiac disease causing epitopes in Canadian wheats. The long term goal of this research is to develop wheat germplasm with a minimal or no CD causing epitopes while maintaining the viscoelastic properties of gluten for making bread and other regionally and ethnically preferred food products consumed by people all over the world.