Wheat starch research gets a boost

With almost half of the calories in the human diet supplied by starch-based products, and increasing worldwide demand for industrial starches, an ongoing priority for agricultural researchers is adding to their knowledge about starch production in grain crops, specifically how to improve and regulate starch yield and composition.

The latest contribution to this research comes from 16-year-old Scott Adams, a Grade 10 student at Saskatoon’s Walter Murray Collegiate Institute, who will represent his region at this year’s national Sanofi-Aventis Biotalent Challenge.

His work demonstrates how turning off a certain gene can be used to better study and potentially control different components of the starch found in wheat.

The component in wheat starch known as amylose, for example, is used in packaging and textiles; amylopectin is found in noodles and other foods, pastes, adhesives and lubricants.

Working with mentors Dr. Pooba Ganeshan and Dr. Ravi Chibbar at the University of Saskatchewan Department of Plant Sciences, Scott used a DNA-related technique (ODN antisense technology) to silence a gene associated with amylose.

In a test tube, Scott mixed two of nature’s wheat nutrients, sucrose and a certain amino acid (L-glautamine), to see if they would encourage wheat’s uptake of the antisense ODNs (a short DNA sequence) and thereby silence the gene responsible for producing amylose.

Then, using another lab technique (called real-time polymerase chain reaction), he observed his success – in all, a scientific first that could one day help agricultural researchers improve the quantity and composition of wheat’s useful elements.

Though he grew up in the province that grows half of all Canada’s major export crops, Scott finds agriculture as a new field of study for him.

“If you live in Saskatoon, you can’t help but be aware of the wheat industry and the biotechnology cluster in Saskatoon,” he says, adding that he hasn’t decided yet whether his future will be in science or some other field. “I still have a couple of years before I have to make that decision and I am keeping my career options open.”