S INCE there is an enormous production of corn in the United States, a complete knowledge of its nutritive value is of scientific interest and may be of great economic importance. Yellow dent corn is too low in protein and its protein is too deficient in essential amino acids, especially lysine and tryptophane, to be fed most efficiently to growing pigs in drylot without a good protein suppleme...

We studied three mutations, opaque-2 (o2), opaque-7 (o7), and floury-2(fI2), each of which causes a depression in zein synthesis. We examined the processing efficiencies of the rough endoplasmic reticulum membranes in vitro, the levels of RNA transcription using cloned zein probes, and the genomic organization of the zein sequences as possible sites for the genetic defects. The results obtained...

The helicase and primase activities of bacteriophage T7 are distributed between the 56- and 63-kDa gene 4 proteins. The 56-kDa gene 4 protein lacks 63 amino acids found at the N terminus of the colinear 63-kDa protein and catalyzes helicase activity. The 63-kDa gene 4 protein catalyzes both primase and helicase activities. A bacteriophage deleted for gene 4, T7 delta 4-1, has been tested for gr...

Maize storage proteins synthesized in oocytes were compartmentalized in membrane vesicles because they were resistant to hydrolysis by protease, unless detergent was present. The site of storage protein deposition within the oocyte was determined by subcellular fractionation. Optimal separation of oocyte membranes and organelles was obtained when EDTA and high concentrations of NaCl were includ...

BACKGROUND Particulates incorporating DNA are promising vehicles for gene delivery, with the ability to protect DNA and provide for controlled, localized, and sustained release and transfection. Zein, a hydrophobic protein from corn, is biocompatible and has properties that make it a promising candidate material for particulate delivery, including its ability to form nanospheres through coacerv...

A carboxymethyl starch (CMS) film was prepared by a process in which gelatinized CMS was dried, and subsequently treated with water-soluble carbodiimide in the presence of zein in 70% ethanol or 70% acetone to form acid-amide cross-linkages in order to increase the hydrophobicity of the surface of the film. A small amount of zein protein was found to be present on the surface of the zein-CMS co...

The prolamin of maize (Zea mays L.), zein, was extracted from endosperm meal with 60% (v/v) 2-propanol/1% (v/v) 2-mercaptoethanol either directly or subsequent to extraction with 90% (v/v) 2-propanol. The zein extracted with 90% 2-propanol was essentially made up of 20 to 24 kilodalton polypeptides (alpha-zein) while that extractable with 60% 2-propanol/1% 2-mercaptoethanol contained, in additi...

In recent years, the ability of ionic surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) to solubilize the water-insoluble protein Zein in aqueous solution, referred to as the Zein solubilization test, has been investigated to rank the skin irritation potential and protein denaturation potential of surfactants. However, the potential of cationic surfactants towards solubilization of Zein has not ...

Activator 1 (A1; also called replication factor C), in conjunction with proliferating-cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), is essential for the elongation of primed DNA templates by DNA polymerases delta and epsilon. A1 contains five distinct subunits of 145, 40, 38, 37, and 36.5 kDa. Here we describe the isolation, sequence, and bacterial expression of a cDNA coding for the 40-kDa subunit. In keeping ...

Transcriptional fusions composed of a 19 kilodalton zein cDNA, the 5' flanking region from a beta-phaseolin gene, and 3' flanking regions from either the phaseolin or a 15-kilodalton zein gene were introduced into Petunia by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The expression of both zein mRNA and protein in these transgenic plants was seed-specific and developmentally regulated. Both monocot...