The effect of nitrogen application levels (0.16 and 0.24 g N kg(-1) soil) on seed proteins and their amino acid compositions of amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) and quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd) was studied. Total proteins of amaranth and quinoa had high contents of lysine (6.3-8.2 g 100 g(-1) protein) but low contents of methionine (1.2-1.8 g 100 g(-1) protein). Seed proteins were fractionated o...

Vitamin-A deficiency (VAD) is a major malnutrition problem in South Asia, where indica rice is the staple food. Indica-type rice varieties feed more than 2 billion people. Hence, we introduced a combination of transgenes using the biolistic system of transformation enabling biosynthesis of provitamin A in the endosperm of several indica rice cultivars adapted to diverse ecosystems of different ...

To gain a better understanding of the biochemical basis for partitioning of photosynthetically fixed carbon between leaf and grain, a (14)CO(2) labeling study was conducted with field-grown maize plants 4 weeks after flowering. The carbon flow was monitored by separation and identification of (14)C assimilates and (14)C storage components within each tissue during the chase period (from 4 to 96...

Seed storage proteins are of great importance in nutrition and in industrial transformation because of their functional properties. Brachypodium distachyon has been proposed as a new model plant to study temperate cereals. The protein composition of Brachypodium grain was investigated by separating the proteins on the basis of their solubility combined with a proteomic approach. Salt-soluble pr...

Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS), widely used in the production of hybrid seeds, is a maternally inherited trait resulting in a failure to produce functional pollen. In order to identify some specific proteins associated with CMS in pepper, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) was applied to proteomic analysis of anthers/buds between a CMS line (designated NA3) and its maintainer (designa...

Seed–storage proteins are important reservoirs of food and energy which are also involved in the determination of bread making quality. Solubility properties of these proteins are traditionally classified into four classes: albumin, globulin, prolamin and glutelin. Gliadin and glutenin have also been studied extensively and the genetics and biochemistry are relatively well known. Grain proteins...

Rice seed storage proteins accumulate in two types of protein body (PB-I and PB-II) that are nutrient sources for animals. PB-I is indigestible and negatively affects rice protein quality. To improve the nutritional value of rice seeds we are aiming to engineer the composition and accumulation of endogenous seed storage proteins. In this study we generated transgenic rice plants in which 13 kD ...

The abundance of N in various fractions in maize (Zea mays L.) grain was compared in two genotypes, a normal hybrid (Pioneer 3369A) and its opnque-2 (0-2) counterpart (L3369). Plants were grown in the greenhouse in sand cultures irrigated daily with nutrient solutions containing 3.75 mM N as NO, ion. At anthesis the plant cultures were divided into sets, one set continuing to be irrigated with ...

In germinating rice seeds, a cysteine proteinase (REP-1), synthesized in aleurone-layer cells, is a key enzyme in the degradation of the major storage protein, glutelin. The expression of the gene for REP-1 (Rep1) is induced by gibberellins (GAs) and repressed by abscisic acid (ABA). To identify GA-responsive elements in the Rep1 promoter, we developed a transient expression system in rice aleu...