Gamma zein makes corn grains harder

Researchers in the United States have found that gamma zein makes corn kernels harder, making them easier to harvest, store and transport, according to the website of the organization of American physicists The discovery could allow scientists to develop better hybrid maize, which could provide more maize for the population with corn as the main food, and also reveal the reasons why QPM is cheap and nutritious Due to the low content of lysine and tryptophan in maize, it is not a good source of protein Maize breeders have been paying attention to this problem for a long time and devoted themselves to the improvement of protein quality in maize After long-term research and practice, the main way to improve the protein quality of corn is to improve the content of gluten in the endosperm, reduce the content of gliadin, and improve the composition of amino acids The corn improved by this method is called "high quality protein corn" (QPM), which came out in the 1990s In the latest issue of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by Joachim messin, director of the Wakeman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University, reported the genetic secrets that make QPM corn kernels harder Researchers suspect that two genes responsible for the production of gamma zein (kDa 16 and kDa 27) affect the hardness of QPM maize kernels Wu Yongrui, a researcher, used a technique to eliminate the expression of these two genes and found that the resulting kernels were softer The researchers used electron microscopy to carefully observe the initial corn kernels and the corn kernels with gene removed The results showed that the softer corn kernels lacked gamma zein, which connected with the starch rich components in corn kernels, kept corn kernels intact and made corn kernels harder Although QPM was developed in the 1990s, scientists have never known that it can change the hardness of corn kernels New research shows that the hardness of corn can be changed, which will help researchers develop better corn hybrids through traditional breeding technology or genetic engineering technology, said jokim messin At the same time, the new findings will help scientists better understand how seeds and their components evolved.