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A High Proportion of Beta-Tocopherol In. 2019
A High Proportion of Beta-Tocopherol In. 2019
This is an Open Access article, distributed Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization (2019) 17(4); 375–378
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence doi:10.1017/S147926211900008X
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
ISSN 1479-2621
Short Communication
Received 29 November 2018; Accepted 21 February 2019 – First published online 10 April 2019
Abstract
Seeds of 15 diverse rice accessions, representing aus, indica, temperate japonica and tropical ja-
ponica subpopulations, were produced under temperate climate conditions in Korea and used for
vitamin E analysis and seed storage experiments at 45°C and 10.9% seed moisture content. High γ-
tocotrienol was significantly positively correlated with seed longevity. In addition, a high β-tocoph-
erol proportion relative to δ-tocopherol was significantly negatively correlated with seed longevity.
Using high-density single-nucleotide polymorphism marker data, DNA haplotype analysis showed
clear allelic variations in the region of two S-adenosylmethionine synthetase genes:
LOC_Os04g42095 and LOC_Os11g15410, which regulate the conversion of δ-tocopherol into β-toc-
opherol. Four indica accessions with rare and subpopulation-specific alleles showed a 2.3-fold
lower β-/δ-tocopherol ratio compared with accessions from other subpopulations.
Table 1. Correlation coefficients (r) between seed longevity parameters and proportions of vitamin E homologues for 15 diverse
rice accessions.
Fig. 1. Haplotype analysis on two S-adenosylmethionine synthetase genes regulating δ-tocopherol conversion into β-tocopherol
for 12 rice accessions (IRRI, 2006a-c, e-f, h-i, k, m, p-q; 2007, b). Green shading indicates the favourable haplotype, grey shading
the unfavourable haplotype; non-synonymous mutations are shown in red font. Three accessions, IRGC 117270, 117273 and
117277 (IRRI 2006g, j, n), were not included in the high-density SNP data set.
longevity (p50). Further, a high proportion of β-tocopherol other groups have the unfavourable haplotype. Further re-
relative to δ-tocopherol was significantly negatively corre- search such as transgenic experiments could be used to val-
lated with Ki and p50. Vitamin E α-/β- homologues have in- idate gene function. A better understanding of the
efficient molecular structures for scavenging free radicals molecular basis for seed longevity will facilitate screening
compared with γ–/δ- homologues (Jiang, 2014; Kim 2014; of genebank accessions for this trait and ultimately, ration-
Lee et al., 2017). LOC_Os11g15410 is annotated to alization of retest intervals.
S-adenosyl-L-methionine: benzoic acid/salicylic acid carb-
oxyl methyltransferase, but its network function has not
Supplementary material
been validated. In four indica accessions with high seed
longevity, there were two non-synonymous mutations (po-
The supplementary material for this article can be found at
sitions 8,732,644 and 8,733,700). An insertion at position
https://doi.org/10.1017/S147926211900008X.
8,733,744 and a deletion at position 8,733,747 may be
linked to the mutation at position 8,733,700 (Rice
SNP-Seek Database: http://snp-seek.irri.org/, last accessed Acknowledgements
26 January 2019). These functional changes might be re-
sponsible for inhibition of δ-/β-tocopherol conversion re- This research was funded by a grant from the Rural
sulting in less β-tocopherol and greater seed longevity. Development Administration, Korea (RDA) as RDA-IRRI
This hypothesis needs validating since the favourable cooperative research project (Grant Ref. PJ012723). We
haplotype was specific to the indica subpopulation and all thank Stephen Timple (IRRI) for technical support.
378 J.-S. Lee et al.