关键词: 玉米, 粉质突变体, 储藏物质, 优质蛋白玉米

Abstract: Maize (Zea mays) is one of the world's most important food crop and also an important model of plant genetics. The long history of maize studies was accumulated plenty of genetic mutants. A group of seed mutants with opaque or floury endosperm were called opaque mutants, which usually reduced grain hardness and transparency. Mutants like opaque2 were found to be able to significantly improve the nutritional quality of maize seeds, hence attracted lots of attentions on the study of opaque endosperm mutants. In early years, only few opaque endosperm mutant genes, such as opaque2 and floury2 etc., were cloned and studied, and their functions were found to be related with the transcription and translation of major storage proteins in maize. In recent years, with
the advancement of science and technology, more opaque mutant genes, such as opaque1, opaque5 and opaque7, were cloned and studied, which revealed further mechanisms for storage component synthesis and deposition in maize seeds. These studies expanded our knowledge for the development and metabolism of maize endosperm.

Key words:  zea mays, opaque mutant, reserve substance, quality protein maize