By Marcia Wood Tomorrow's wheat plants might yield designer flours for making delicious, wholesome new breads, pastas and other appetizing foods. To produce these innovative flours, scientists with the Agricultural Research Service are using genetic engineering techniques to rebuild key flour genes. In one gene rebuilding experiment, increasing the length of some glutenin genes increased the time required to properly mix the dough. That's a boon to bakers, because increased dough-mixing time is a key indicator of dough strength. Strong doughs trap tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide gas formed naturally by yeast during mixing and rising.
Bubbles enable doughs to rise, helping form high, light, finely- textured loaves.
Calif. ARS has patented some of the research and is seeking business partners to commercialize the technology. ARS is the chief research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture . An article in the November issue of the ARS monthly journal, Agricultural Research , tells more about the wheat biotech discoveries.