CE systems Capel successfully analyze Sicilian wheat landraces

March 2023 – Sicily, Italy. Agricultural labs in different parts of Sicily have started using Lumex Instruments’ Capel capillary electrophoresis (CE) systems for the analysis of protein profile in various wheat landraces.

The main task for Capel in these labs is to characterize the protein profile of different landraces of Sicilian grain. Obviously, genetic varieties between races lead to differences in their protein profiles which can be detected using capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE) technique. For example, such landraces as durum wheat and bread wheat have different number of chromosomes, that is seen in protein distribution – the latter has more proteins in extra high molecular weight range. Below are two electropherograms of the cultivar Simeto (upper EPG) and Maiorca (low EPG), clearly demonstrating these differences:

All measurements were done using an analytical protocol and an appropriate SDS-Mw kit, adopted for Capel CE systems. Protein resolution and sensitivity are definitely superior to the classical SDS-PAGE analysis, while the highest degree of automatization of the whole analysis makes CGE much less laborious.

The global task of customers’ labs is to characterize all Sicilian wheat landraces (more than 52 varieties) and to compose a kind of database, also relating the obtained protein profiles to other properties of the wheat and its corresponding dough. This approach should also allow to characterize and to define a new landrace by comparison its protein profile with some of reference ones.

One of the labs, where Capel-105M CE system is now installed is CREA, Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economics Analysis, Research Centre for Cereal and Industrial Crops in the city of Acireale. CREA is a chain organization with laboratories all over Italy. It positions itself as a leading structure dealing with all research and analyses in the country in the agricultural field.