On the DBC protein content and on the amino acid contents in F5 lines of the barley line Hiproly

Abstract

Two descendant groups of the barley line Hiproly and the parents, Hja c2661 and Hja c4003, were examined for variations in the DBC protein and amino acid contents. The frequency distributions of the DBC protein content in both descendant groups were unimodal and no effect of one gene was seen, even though the high lysine content of Hiproly is caused by one gene (lys). The means of the DBC protein contents in these F5 generations were 19.1 % and 19.0 %. Environmental factors have a great effect on the DBC protein content: environmental variances from the total variances were 93.84 % and 41.54 %. In the lines with the highest DBC protein contents there were generally more basic amino acids, phenylalanine and proline, than in the lines with the lowest DBC protein contents. Therefore, it appears that the lines with the highest DBC protein contents contain much albumins and prolamins. Also, the ratios of basic amino acids to proline indicated that the relationships between albumins and prolamins were nearly the same for all the lines. Thus, the high DBC protein content in many lines is really based on high amounts of albumins and prolamins at the same time. The present study indicated that Hiproly may be better than the Risø 1508 mutant of barley in breeding for the yielding capacity, because the lys gene of Hiproly does not seem to decrease the prolamin content.