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Changes in fine structure of amylopectin and internal structures of starch granules in developing endosperms and culms caused by starch branching enzyme mutations of japonica rice

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BEIIb plays a specific role in determining the structure of amylopectin in rice endosperm, whereas BEIIa plays the similar role in the culm where BEIIb is absent.

Abstract

Cereals have three types of starch branching enzymes (BEs), BEI, BEIIa, and BEIIb. It is widely known that BEIIb is specifically expressed in the endosperm and plays a distinct role in the structure of amylopectin because in its absence the amylopectin type changes to the amylose-extender-type (ae-type) or B-type from the wild-type or A-type and this causes the starch crystalline allomorph to the B-type from the wild-type A-type. This study aimed to clarify the role of BEIIa in the culm where BEIIb is not expressed, by using a be2a mutant in comparison with results with be2b and be1 mutants. The results showed that the amylopectin structure exhibited the B-type in the be2a culm compared with the A-type in the wild-type culm. The starch granules from the be2a culm also showed the B-type like allomorph when examined by X-ray diffraction analysis and optical sum frequency generation spectroscopy. Both amylopectin chain-length profile and starch crystalline properties were found to be the A-type at the very early stage of endosperm development at 4–6 days after pollination (DAP) even in the be2b mutant. All these results support a view that in the culm as well as in the endosperm at 4–6 DAP, BEIIa can play the role of BEIIb which has been well documented in maturing endosperm. The possible mechanism as to how BEIIa can play its role is discussed.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Hikaru Satoh for providing us with rice mutants used in this study. We also thank Dr. Naoko Fujita for help to use facilities in Akita Prefectural University, and Dr. Satoko Miura for instruction of the method for measurement of amylose content of the starch sample. This study was funded by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19H05721 (GMa).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Starch Technologies, Co., Ltd., Akita Prefectural University, Shimoshinjo-Nakano, Akita-City, Akita, 010-0195, Japan

    Yasunori Nakamura & Masami Ono

  2. Akita Natural Science Laboratory, 25-44 Oiwake-Nishi, Tennoh, Katagami, Akita, 010-0101, Japan

    Yasunori Nakamura

  3. Faculty of Bioresource Sciences, Akita Prefectural University, Shimoshinjo-Nakano, Akita-City, Akita, 010-0195, Japan

    Yasunori Nakamura, Akiko Kubo & Masami Ono

  4. Graduate School of Organic Materials Engineering, Yamagata University, 4-3-16 Jonan, Yonezawa, Yamagata, 992-8510, Japan

    Kazuki Yashiro & Go Matsuba

  5. School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa, 923-1292, Japan

    Yifei Wang, Akira Matsubara & Goro Mizutani

  6. Food Research Institute, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, 2-1-12 Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8642, Japan

    Junko Matsuki

  7. Science Academy of Tsukuba, 2-20-3 Takezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0032, Japan

    Keiji Kainuma

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  1. Yasunori Nakamura
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  2. Akiko Kubo
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  3. Masami Ono
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  4. Kazuki Yashiro
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Contributions

YN conceived and designed the study. Those who conducted the research and analyzed the data were YN, AK, and MO (biochemical experiments), KY and GMa (XRD), and YW, AMa, and GMi (SFG). JM prepared standard glucans, BD4A and DB4B, whereas YN prepared glucans from rice. YN, JM, KK, GMa, and GMi wrote, read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yasunori Nakamura.

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Nakamura, Y., Kubo, A., Ono, M. et al. Changes in fine structure of amylopectin and internal structures of starch granules in developing endosperms and culms caused by starch branching enzyme mutations of japonica rice. Plant Mol Biol 108, 481–496 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-021-01237-6

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