The nutritional valué and the unique dough-forming and baking properties of wheat flour largely depend on its protein contení and composition. Wheat endosperm has poor nutritional quality because it is deficient in certain essential amino acids (especially lysine), but because it is abundant, it is still the single most important source of protein for much of the world's population. Although wheat proteins have been extensively investigated by biochemists, geneticists, and breeders for well over two centuries, our knowledge about them is limited, compared with that of other important sources of dietary proteins, such as meat or milk. Onlyduringthepast 15yearshavesignificantadvances been madein the biochemical and genetic studies of individual wheat protein components. Most of the genetic studies have been on the aneuploid lines developed and made available by Sears (1953, 1954, 1959, 1966). Progress in aneuploid analysis of genes controlling proteins has generally depended on advances in protein fractionation and characterization. In many cases, however, these genetic analyses have been done on insufficiently characteri/ed groups of proteins, and this has resulted in some confusión
