Location: Commodity Utilization Research
Project Number: 6054-41000-103-011-N
Project Type: Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jan 1, 2015
End Date: Dec 31, 2019
Objective:
Rice starch and cottonseed oil are two widely used agricultural commodities on the World market. Understanding the metabolism (biosynthesis and degradation) of oil and starch in these two major crops will help to increase the value of these important commodities. The biosynthesis and degradation of biopolymers such as plant oil and starch are accomplished by highly organized enzyme complexes. The coordination of various components in the complexes is essential for the enzymatic efficiency and specificity. The combinations of various isoforms rather than individual enzymes may be the determining factor for the metabolism of specific components of biopolymers. Current studies are focused on the identification and characterization of individual enzymes in plant starch and oil biosynthesis. However, much needs to be learned about the nature and regulation of the starch and oil metabolic machinery in plants. The objective of this proposal is to determine the nature of protein components in oil bodies and starch grains and the temporal and special regulation of genes coded for the various enzymatic complexes of oil and starch metabolism in cotton and rice.
Approach:
Enzyme complexes will be identified by a number of approaches including blue native poly-acrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), size exclusion chromatography and mass spectrometry. The temporal and special regulation of the genes coded for the various enzymes in the biosynthesis and degradation complexes in cotton and rice will be evaluated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), transcriptomics and immunoblotting technologies.
