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Low expression of carotenoids cleavage dioxygenase 1 (ccd1) gene improves the retention of provitamin-A in maize grains during storage

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Abstract

Provitamin-A (proA) is essentially required for vision in humans but its deficiency affects children and pregnant women especially in the developing world. Biofortified maize rich in proA provides new opportunity for sustainable and cost-effective solution to alleviate malnutrition, however, significant loss of carotenoids during storage reduces its efficacy. Here, we studied the role of carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase 1 (ccd1) gene on degradation of carotenoids in maize. A set of 24 maize inbreds was analyzed for retention of proA during storage. At harvest, crtRB1-based maize inbreds possessed significantly high proA (β-carotene: 12.30 µg/g, β-cryptoxanthin: 4.36 µg/g) than the traditional inbreds (β-carotene: 1.74 µg/g, β-cryptoxanthin: 1.28 µg/g). However, crtRB1-based inbreds experienced significant degradation of proA carotenoids (β-carotene: 20%, β-cryptoxanthin: 32% retention) following 5 months. Among the crtRB1-based genotypes, V335PV had the lowest retention of proA (β-carotene: 1.63 µg/g, β-cryptoxanthin: 0.82 µg/g), while HKI161PV had the highest retention of proA (β-carotene: 4.17 µg/g, β-cryptoxanthin: 2.32 µg/g). Periodical analysis revealed that ~ 60–70% of proA degraded during the first three months. Expression analysis revealed that high expression of ccd1 led to low retention of proA carotenoids in V335PV, whereas proA retention in HKI161PV was higher due to lower expression. Highest expression of ccd1 was observed during first 3 months of storage. Copy number of ccd1 gene varied among yellow maize (1–6 copies) and white maize (7–35 copies) while wild relatives contained 1–4 copies of ccd1 gene per genome. However, copy number of ccd1 gene did not exhibit any correlation with proA carotenoids. We concluded that lower expression of ccd1 gene increased the retention of proA during storage in maize. Favourable allele of ccd1 can be introgressed into elite maize inbreds for higher retention of proA during storage.

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Acknowledgements

First author is thankful to Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), India for Junior Research Fellowship to pursue the Master’s programme. We thank the breeders of VPKAS, Almora and CCS-HAU, Uchani for sharing their inbreds. Thanks, are also due to CIMMYT, Mexico for providing the accession of wild relatives of maize.

Funding

Financial support of ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and ICAR funded Consortia Research Platform on ‘Biofortification of Selected Crops for Nutritional Security-Maize’ is thankfully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Genetics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India

    Suman Dutta, Vignesh Muthusamy, Rashmi Chhabra, Aanchal Baveja, Rajkumar U. Zunjare, Devendra K. Yadava & Firoz Hossain

  2. ICAR-National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi, India

    Tapan K. Mondal

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  1. Suman Dutta
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  2. Vignesh Muthusamy
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  3. Rashmi Chhabra
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  4. Aanchal Baveja
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  5. Rajkumar U. Zunjare
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  6. Tapan K. Mondal
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  7. Devendra K. Yadava
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  8. Firoz Hossain
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Contributions

Conduct of the experiment: SD; field experiment: RUZ and VM; storage experiment: SD and DKY; molecular analyses: SD, RC and TKM; estimation of carotenoids: AB and VM; statistical analyses: RUZ and FH; design of the experiment: VM and FH; drafting of manuscript: SD, VM, DKY and FH.

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Correspondence to Vignesh Muthusamy.

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Dutta, S., Muthusamy, V., Chhabra, R. et al. Low expression of carotenoids cleavage dioxygenase 1 (ccd1) gene improves the retention of provitamin-A in maize grains during storage. Mol Genet Genomics 296, 141–153 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-020-01734-1

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