Genetic, Hormonal, and Physiological Analysis of Late Maturity α-Amylase in Wheat

Late maturity alpha-amylase (LMA) is a genetic defect that is commonly found in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) cultivars and can result in commercially unacceptably high levels of alpha-amylase in harvest-ripe grain in the absence of rain or preharvest sprouting. This defect represents a serious problem for wheat farmers, and apart from the circumstantial evidence that gibberellins are somehow involved in the expression of LMA, the mechanisms or genes underlying LMA are unknown. In this work, we use a doubled haploid population segregating for constitutive LMA to physiologically analyze the appearance of LMA during grain development and to profile the transcriptomic and hormonal changes associated with this phenomenon. Our results show that LMA is a consequence of a very narrow and transitory peak of expression of genes encoding high-isoelectric point alpha-amylase during grain development and that the LMA phenotype seems to be a partial or incomplete gibberellin response emerging from a strongly altered hormonal environment.