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. 2024 Nov 7;14(1):27161.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-65514-2.

Temporal profile of amino acids and protein fractions in the developing kernel of maize germplasm

Veena Devi  1 , Mehak Sethi  1 , Charanjeet Kaur  2 , Vishal Singh  3 , Ramesh Kumar  3 , Dharam Paul Chaudhary  4
Affiliations

Temporal profile of amino acids and protein fractions in the developing kernel of maize germplasm

Veena Devi et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Maize, the most important source of animal and poultry feed, is deficient in essential amino acid methionine. Therefore, methionine is added to the poultry feed to meet its nutritional requirements. Keeping in view, an urgent requirement exists to develop high-methionine maize. The present study was designed to understand the synthesis and accumulation pattern of methionine, lysine, tryptophan, total protein, and protein fractions in the developing maize kernel. Results revealed that methionine accumulation starts before 15 DAP and increases towards maturity. Total protein, albumin, and globulin accumulation showed a declining trend, whereas, prolamin, prolamin-like, glutelin, and glutelin-like fractions increased with kernel maturity. Methionine showed a significant positive correlation with prolamin and a negative correlation with glutelin, indicating their use as markers to select high methionine lines. Higher level accumulation of lysine, tryptophan, and methionine, the three essential amino acids deficient in maize, was observed highest in lines 174705 and 194010 indicating their use as a potential donor for developing high methionine maize genotypes. The high methionine line identified in the present study can be used in breeding programs through introgressing maize germplasm of diverse genetic backgrounds to develop high-yielding methionine-rich maize genotypes to develop a sustainable nutritive feed supply chain.

Keywords: Lysine; Maize; Methionine; Nutritional quality; Time course evaluation; Tryptophan; Zeins.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Screening of maize kernel on a lightbox for its kernel phenotyping.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Average amino acid percentage in high and low methionine lines during kernel development. Error bar represents standard error. Tukey’s test (P < 0.05): Letters A, B, C… and so on depict that sample means are significantly different from each other.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Dendrogram of protein content at different stages of kernel development.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Dendrogram of methionine (a), tryptophan (b) and lysine (c) content at different stages of kernel development.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Dendrogram of albumin (a), globulin (b), prolamin (c), prolamin-like (d), glutelin (e) and glutelin-like (f) content at different stages of kernel development.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Dendrogram of albumin (a), globulin (b), prolamin (c), prolamin-like (d), glutelin (e) and glutelin-like (f) content at different stages of kernel development.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Correlation of protein, lysine, methionine, tryptophan, and protein fractions at 15 (a), 30 (b), and 45 (c) DAP of kernel development.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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