New strategy for targeting beta-glucan activity and breeding of malting barley

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a key ingredient in malting and brewing. Malt, produced from germinating barley is used for making alcoholic beverages. Brewing companies are the main consumers for barley malt. Canada is one of the major players in 2.9 billion USD global malt trading industry. Malting quality of barley, an economically important phenotype, represents a complex, multi-component trait. Beta-glucan (BG) is a major factor determining malting potential and brewing yield. BG affects the endosperm modifications and the viscosity of wort during brewing which cause great lautering and filtration difficulties. Continuous efforts are being made to identify enzyme/proteins with glucanase activity with the aim to minimise beta -glucan molecules in wort. We have successfully identified a novel barley protein, TLP8 (thaumatin like protein), which binds to beta-glucan and significantly lowers its amount during malting process. Our findings suggest that higher amounts of HvTLP8 protein can minimize problems encountered during the beer lautering and filtration processes. Glucanase type activity of HvTLP8 has great potential to mitigate problems of beta-glucan molecules during malting and brewing process and assist the development of improved malting barley varieties. This could be used as functional and biochemical marker for the breeding of future generation of malting varieties.**