Novel biochemical screening technique for cold tolerance in rice.
1988
Majumder M.K. | Seshu D.V. | Shenoy V.V.
Cold tolerant rice cultivars exhibited higher unsaturation of polar lipids particularly of the linolenic acid content as compared to that of cold susceptible cultivars both under low and ambient temperature conditions. Tolerant cultivars also showed a null allelic situation at esterase 2 isozyme locus. Susceptible and less tolerant cultivars either had esterase 2 to the first power or esterase 2 to the second power alleles as reflected by the slower or faster mobility of electrophoretic bands. Investigations revealed that esterase 2 to the first power and 2 to the second power isozymes complete for the choline ester precursors of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUSFA) to convert them to free unsaturated fatty acids, thus reducing the level of PUSFA in the polar lipid fraction. Although these free unsaturated fatty acids to a greater extent are utilized as respiratory substrates, a small part is metabolized to short chain saturated fatty acids (SCSFA) specifically during seed maturation. The present investigations indicated that these SCSFA, particularly the nonanoic acid (C9) plays an important role in seed dormancy. This obviously explains the low degree of dormancy in the cold tolerant rice cultivars which have a lower level of SCSFA. Further, to impose dormancy by nonanoic acid, it has been observed that cold tolerant cultivars needed more amount than the cold susceptible cultivars.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Wolters Kluwer