高分子量麦谷蛋白是小麦种子贮藏蛋白的重要组成部分,其数量和质量对小麦面筋含量及面粉烘烤品质有直接影响。因此,小麦高分子量麦谷蛋白基因的表达与沉默备受关注。本文主要介绍了高分子量麦谷蛋白基因沉默材料的发现及其沉默机理的研究现状,认为小麦高分子量麦谷蛋白基因沉默包括两种情况即在一个基因座位上所有编码基因均不表达和只有一个编码基因不表达。第一种情况可能是染色体部分缺失的结果,有时也被认为是由于调控元件发生了突变;而基因突变即DNA调控序列和/或编码区的微小缺失及其他变化则可能是第二种情况发生的机制。本文还简要介绍了离子束生物技术、转基因技术、化学诱变、组织培养等可以用于创制基因沉默材料的技术。
The high-molecular-weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GSs) are a major class of storage proteins in wheat. The end-use quality of wheat flour is directly influenced by the composition and quantity of HMW-GSs. Therefore, researchers pay more attention to the gene silencing of them. In this article, we give a brief introduction of the development of HMW glutenin gene silence material and the mechanism of gene silencing. We think that the gene silencing of wheat HMW-GSs included two cases: all of the coding genes are silencing and only one coding gene is silencing in a gene locus. The first case may be caused by partial deletion of chromosome, or mutations of regulatory elements sometimes. The second is probably because of gene mutation, such as deletion and other changes of DNA regulatory sequence and / or coding region. Several gene silencing techniques, including of Ion Beam Bio-technology, transgene technology, Chemical Mutagenesis, Tissue Culture, and so on, are also illustrated.