Gluten protein

Gluten is a protein that appears in foods processed from wheat and other cereal grains, including barley and rye.

It is the mixture of proteins in the endosperm of cereals. It gives elasticity to dough, helping it to rise and keep it shape and often giving the final product a chewy texture.

Gluten when dried and milled to powder and added to ordinary flour dough, improves rising and decreases the bread’s structural stability and chewiness. It is gluten that is responsible for the appearance texture and volume of dough.

Mixing and kneading activate the gluten; the more the dough is kneaded the more the gluten develops, reinforcing the structure of the dough.

There are two main groups of proteins in gluten, called the prolamin (gliadins) and glutelin (glutenins) and are regarded as storage proteins.

The amino acid composition of the protein varies; for example, lysine concentration is about three times higher in glutelin than in prolamin.

Wheat gluten contains high concentration of the amino acids glutamic acid and proline (33% and 12% of total amino acids, respectively).
Gluten protein