Question

Lysine rich maize variety is
A) Protina
B) Rattan
C) Shakti
D) All of the above

Answer 1

Hint:Lysine is an amino acid essential for the synthesis of proteins. It is a six carbon amino acid containing two amine groups and a carboxylic acid group. It’s structure can be represented as follows:

Complete answer:
Maize, commonly known as corn is a cereal plant from the grass family. Although this plant is rich in the base thymine, it is known to be deficient in the amino acids lysine and tryptophan. The opaque-2 mutant variants of maize were developed in the laboratory to combat the deficiency of tryptophan and lysine in maize as a result of the “All India coordinated maize improvement project” and were commercially released in 1971.

The opaque-2 mutant variants introduced in the market were three different varieties of maize namely, Protina, Rattan and Shakti. All these synthetically developed maize varieties contain the recessive mutant allele for the opaque-2 gene which encodes the leucine zipper transcription factor that causes an increase in the amount of lysine and tryptophan in the corn kernels.

Since all the three varieties of maize Protina, Rattan and Shakti mentioned in the question above are rich in the amino acid lysine, therefore, the correct answer to this question will be option (D) All of the above.

Thus the correct answer is option ‘D’.

Note:The “All India coordinated maize improvement project” was the first program organized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in the year 1957 dedicated towards the improvement of the quality of maize in India.