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WHEAT GLUTEN
AND ITS VISCOELASTIC PROPERTIES
Wheat gluten is a storage protein in wheat flour. There is an interest
in wheat gluten because it has been related to bread making quality,
specifically because of its unique viscoelastic properties. It is
also environmentally friendly, renewable and it is a biodegradable
material. The main focus of the research is to determine the component(s)
that cause viscoelasticity in wheat gluten. To determine the reason
for elasticity a Molecular Force Probe (MFP) is needed to find the
force of the molecules. Different PH buffers will be used on the
gluten sample to observe whether there are any behavior changes.
If differences are observed than that may mean that the side chains
of the amino acids and their charges are important for elasticity.
Side chains have different charges and the different PH buffers
may effect the charge of these side chains. After collecting pulls
with the MFP the data is then fit to three models. The most common
model used to analyze data from protein pulling is the worm-like
chain model. This model does not fit our data. The second is the
Hooke model which represents a directly proportional increase between
force and distance pulled. The last is the Exponential model which,
so far, best describes the data that has been gathered.
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