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Updated: Jan 28, 2026

Untargeted Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolomics Analysis of Wheat Grain
Published on: March 13, 2020
Distinguishing between Bread Wheat and Spelt Grains Using Molecular Markers and Spectroscopy
A Y Curzon1,2, K Chandrasekhar1, Y K Nashef1
1Department of Vegetable and Field Crops, Institute of Plant Sciences , Agricultural Research Organization (ARO)-Volcani Center , Rishon LeZion 7528809 , Israel.
Abstract:
The increasing demand for spelt products requires the baking industry to develop accurate and efficient tools to differentiate between spelt and bread wheat grains. We subjected a 272-sample spelt-bread wheat set to several potential diagnostic methods. DNA markers for γ-gliadin-D ( GAG56D), γ-gliadin-B ( GAG56B), and the Q-gene were used, alongside phenotypic assessment of ease-of-threshing and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The GAG56B and GAG56D markers demonstrated low diagnostic power in comparison to the Q-gene genotyping, which showed full accordance with the threshing phenotype, providing a highly accurate distinction between bread wheat and spelt kernels. A highly reliable Q classification was based on a three-waveband NIR model [Kappa (0.97), R-square (0.93)], which suggested that this gene influences grain characteristics. Our data ruled out a protein concentration bias of the NIRS-based diagnosis. These findings highlight the Q gene and NIRS as important, valuable, but simple tools for distinguishing between bread wheat and spelt.
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