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Cell Wall Characteristics of a Maize Mutant Selected for Decreased Ferulates

Forages, including maize (Zea mays L.) silage, are key components of diets for ruminants. There is a renewed interest in forages especially in energy dense diets such as those required for high producing dairy cows due to the increase in grain prices partially driven by the creation of new markets especially for corn grain as a primary feedstock for ethanol production.

The cross-linked nature of plant cell walls provides structural integrity for continued growth and development, but limits degradation and utilization by ruminants. In grasses, a major cross-linking component is ferulic acid that is incorporated into cell walls as an ester linked residue on arabinoxylans. Ferulates can become coupled to each other and to lignin forming a highly cross-linked matrix of carbohydrates and lignin. Seedling ferulate ester mutants (sfe) were produced in maize using the transposon system and evaluated in feeding trials. The work described here was undertaken to characterize changes in the ferulate cross-linked nature as well as other components of the corn cell wall matrix in leaf, sheath and stem tissues.

Near-isogenic lines of the putative sfe maize mutant were compared to the parental inbred W23 to determine cell wall characteristics. Two sfe lines (W23sfe4 and W23sfe21 independent mutant lines) were chosen for study. Equal amounts of dried and ground material from each field plot, location, and year (N = 16) for every maize line was combined to create individual leaf blade, sheath, and stem samples of W23, W23sfe4, and W23sfe21.

The results showed that total ferulates decreased modestly due to the mutation and were more apparent in leaf tissue (16% - 18%) compared to sheath (+5 to -6% change) and stem (8% - 9% decrease). The most significant changes were in the ether linked ferulates to lignin, both monomer and dehydrodiferulates (14% to 38% decrease). Other characteristics of the cell wall (lignin, neutral sugar composition) also showed modest changes. The change in total ferulates was modest, but led to improved animal performance.

In short, these findings suggest that relatively small changes can have an additive effect resulting in improved animal performance without the need for large shifts in cell wall composition.


Article by Ronald D. Hatfield, et al, from USA.

Full access: http://mrw.so/4n9cwb

Image by wenxue2222, from Flickr-cc.

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