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Genetic Improvement of Cereal Proteins

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Nutrition and Agricultural Development

Part of the book series: Basic Life Sciences ((BLSC,volume 7))

Abstract

Cereal proteins are inferior nutritionally to the proteins in milk, meat, and eggs because of inadequate levels of the amino acid lysine. With the discovery in 1963 by Mertz, Bates, and Nelson (1) that the maize mutant opaque-2 had nearly twice as much lysine as ordinary maize has, scientists realized that cereal grain proteins could be improved in quality by genetic manipulation. The recent discovery of high-lysine mutants of barley (2) and sorghum (3) raises the hope that all cereals can be improved in protein quality.

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References

  1. Mertz, E. T., Bates, L. S., and Nelson, O. E., 1964, Mutant gene that changes protein composition and increases lysine content of maize endosperm, Science 145: 279.

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© 1976 Plenum Press, New York

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Mertz, E.T. (1976). Genetic Improvement of Cereal Proteins. In: Scrimshaw, N.S., Béhar, M. (eds) Nutrition and Agricultural Development. Basic Life Sciences, vol 7. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2883-4_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2883-4_39

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-2885-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-2883-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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