Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) is an important protein source in human diets and animal feeds. The sulphur content of soybean seed proteins, however, is not optimal for ration formulations. Thus, increasing the methionine and cysteine content of soybean seed proteins would enhance the nutritional quality of this widely utilized legume. We have earlier reported the isolation of an 11 kDa delta...

Maize transcription factors (TFs) opaque2 (O2) and the O2 heterodimerizing proteins (OHP1 and OHP2) originated from an ancient segmental duplication. The 22-kDa (z1C) and 19-kDa (z1A, z1B, and z1D) α-zeins are the most abundant storage proteins in maize endosperm. O2 is known to regulate α-zein gene expression, but its target motifs in the 19-kDa α-zein gene promoters have not been identified. ...

Defective endosperm* (De*)-B30 is a dominant maize (Zea mays) mutation that depresses zein synthesis in the developing endosperm. The mutant kernels have an opaque, starchy phenotype, malformed zein protein bodies, and highly increased levels of binding protein and other chaperone proteins in the endosperm. Immunoblotting revealed a novel alpha-zein protein in De*-B30 that migrates between the ...

The obtainment of new materials with distinct properties by mixing two or more polymers is a potential strategy in sustainable packaging research. In the present work, blend cellulose acetate (CA) and zein (60:40 wt/wt CA:zein) was manufactured adding glycerol tributyrin as plasticizers (30% wt/wt), garlic essential oil (GEO), complexed (IC) not ?-cyclodextrin (?CD), to produce active packaging...

Zein, the prolamine fraction of maize, is localized in the endosperm in membrane-bound structures called protein bodies, which have polyribosomes on their surfaces. These polysomes or the mRNA fraction isolated from them will direct the synthesis of zein-like proteins in vitro. The in vitro products consist primarily of two molecular weight classes but show considerable charge heterogeneity whe...

The maize (Zea mays) floury1 (fl1) mutant was first reported almost 100 years ago, but its molecular identity has remained unknown. We report the cloning of Fl1, which encodes a novel zein protein body membrane protein with three predicted transmembrane domains and a C-terminal plant-specific domain of unknown function (DUF593). In wild-type endosperm, the FL1 protein accumulates at a high leve...

Zein is a prolamine of maize. Conventionally, 70–90% aqueous ethanol is used to dissolve zein. When the hydrodynamic radii of zein molecules in aqueous ethanol were monitored with a dynamic light scattering instrument, it was found that zein aggregates in the solvent and the degree of aggregation depends on the composition of the solvent mixture. As the ethanol content of solvent increased from...

The interaction of 12 substituted phenol, three aminophenol and four substituted aniline derivatives with the corn protein zein was studied on zein-coated silica and alumina stationary phases by high-performance liquid chromatography using bidistilled water as mobile phase. Solutes were eluted from the zein-coated supports with different retention times indicating that they bind to the protein ...

Quality Protein Maize (QPM) is a hard kernel variant of the high-lysine mutant, opaque2. Using γ-irradiation, we created opaque QPM variants to identify opaque-2 modifier genes and to investigate deletion mutagenesis combined with Illumina sequencing as a maize functional genomics tool. A K0326Y-QPM deletion mutant (line 107) was null for the 27and 50-kD γ-zeins and abolished vitreous endosperm...