Protein profiling in a set of wild rice species and rice cultivars: a stepping stone to protein quality improvement.

In this study, a total of 118 genotypes, including 90 wild accessions belonging to AA genome (O. glaberrima, O. barthii, O. nivara, O. rufipogon, O. longistaminata, O. meridionalis, O. glumaepatula) and CC genome (O. officinalis), 19 non-basmati genotypes and nine basmati cultivars were analyzed for their protein content and grain characteristics in brown rice. The protein content in wild rice accessions was appreciably high as 20.8% followed by non-basmati and (11.5%) and basmati (11%) cultivars. Thousand-grain weight and grain breadth (GB) were highest in wild rice accessions (30.4gm and 2.9 mm), while grain length and L: B were highest in basmati cultivars (8.9 mm and 6.2). Fractionation of storage proteins and SDS gel electrophoresis revealed that significant differences in the protein content between the wild rice species and cultivated rice genotypes were mainly due to differences in their glutelin contents and high molecular weight glutelin polypeptides. The presence of characteristic bands in selected accessions is a useful parameter for identification of rice germplasm. The wild species that had high protein content has potential to increase the nutritional quality of rice through interspecific crosses in future breeding programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]