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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » Cereal Crops Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #262194
Title: Protein mobilization and malting-specific proteinase expression during barley germination

Author
item Schmitt, Mark
item Skadsen, Ronald
item Budde, Allen

Submitted to: Journal of Cereal Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/21/2013
Publication Date: 7/8/2013
Citation: Schmitt, M., Skadsen, R.W., Budde, A.D. 2013. Protein mobilization and malting-specific proteinase expression during barley germination. Journal of Cereal Science. 58(2):324-332.

Interpretive Summary: Conversion of barley seed into malt requires synthesis and activity of a number of enzymes. One important class of such enzymes are the proteainses, those enzymes that degrade proteins. In this paper, we describe the use of microarray technology to identify changes in proteinase expression that may result in an unusual set of properties for malt produced in the laboratory under conditions different from those normally used to produce malt.

Technical Abstract: Robust barley was germinated under three different conditions: 1) a production run in a commercial malting facility, 2) a micromalting protocol developed to generate malt with malting quality metrics similar to that from the commercial malting, and 3) a simple laboratory setting using a humidified plastic box placed in a temperature-regulated incubator. Malt from the three regimes was analyzed for a set of core malting quality attributes. Samples were also collected through the various malting stages for RNA isolation and transcript characterization using the Affymetrix Barley1 gene chip. Differences in malting quality were compared to transcript expression patterns, identifying several proteinase transcripts that can be linked to malting quality differences.