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Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access published online on April 20, 2009

Plant and Cell Physiology, doi:10.1093/pcp/pcp058
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Chlorella Starch Branching Enzyme (BE) Can Complement the Function of BEIIb in Rice Endosperm

Takayuki Sawada1,2, Perigio B. Francisco, Jr.1,2, Satomi Aihara2, Yoshinori Utsumi2, Mayumi Yoshida2, Yasunori Oyama3, Mikio Tsuzuki3, Hikaru Satoh4 and Yasunori Nakamura1,2

1CREST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan
2Akita Prefectural University, Shimoshinjo-Nakano, Akita-city, 010-0195, Japan
3Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Science, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0392, Japan
4Kyusyu University, Hakozaki, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan

Corresponding author: Prof. Yasunori Nakamura, Akita Prefectural University, Akita-city 010-0195, Japan, E-mail: nakayn{at}akita-pu.ac.jp, Tel.: +81-18-872-1652, Fax.: +81-18-872-1681


   Abstract

In monocots starch branching enzyme II (BEII) were functionally differentiated into BEIIa and BEIIb after the separation from the dicots, and in cereals BEIIb plays a distinct role in amylopectin biosynthesis in the endosperm. The present study was conducted to examine to what extent a green algal BEII has an overlapping function of BEIIb in starch biosynthesis by introducing the Chlorella BEII gene into an amylose-extender (ae) mutant of rice. The Chlorella BEII was found to complement the contribution of the rice endosperm BEIIb to the structures of amylopectin and starch granules because these mutated phenotypes were recovered almost completely to those of the wild type by the expression of Chlorella BEII. When the recombinant BE enzymes were incubated with the rice ae-amylopectin, the branching pattern of the Chlorella BEII was much more similar to that of the rice BEIIb rather than the rice BEIIa. Detailed analyses of BE reaction products suggests that BEIIb and Chlorella BEII only transfer chains with DP6 and 7 whereas BEIIa preferably transfers short chains with DP of about 6-11. These results show that the Chlorella BEII is functionally similar to the rice BEIIb rather than BEIIa.

Keywords: Amylopectin - Chlorella - Rice Starch - Starch branching enzyme

(Received February 2, 2009; Accepted April 14, 2009)
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