AN8001: Gluten Characterized by Reverse-Phase Chromatography + MALS

Gluten is a mixture of two types of proteins (gliadins and glutenins) found in wheat. The quality of bread made from wheat largely depends on the gluten proteins, which form a viscoelastic network during dough mixing that leads to successful bread. For decades, extensive studies have been devoted to the characterization of these proteins; however, their exact structure and size have not been known due to their low solubility and high complexity—not to mention a shortage of appropriate analytical characterization techniques.

Reverse-phase chromatography (RPC) has been widely used for analyzing wheat proteins because of its high resolution. This note shows that the concomitant use of a DAWN^® multi-angle light scattering (MALS) detector and RPC constitutes a powerfully effective means to determine both molar mass and size for the wheat protein, TAM 105.