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The use of SEC for accurate determination of amylose content in rice.
M. A. FITZGERALD (1). (1) University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia

Every rice improvement program measures amylose content at the earliest possible stage in breeding. This is because amylose has been associated with causing or contributing to every described trait of texture, which means that amylose content is given high importance in breeding programs. One of the difficulties faced by all rice imrpovement programs and rice traders, is that amylose content is measured in different ways around the world, which leads to different values, and therefore different expectations of quality. Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC) is an analytical tool that can  provide information about starch structure. Once the starch molecules are debranched, teh chains of amylose can be separated from chains derived from amylopectin. The area under each curve can be used to quantify the amount of amylose. SEC is not a tool that can be adapted for routine and rapid measurement of amylose in a quality evaluation laboratory. However, if one laboratory can measure the amylose content of a set of standard samples, and thsi be validated by two or more other laboratories, the calibrated set of standards can be widely distributed to rice improvement laboratories for use in generating a standard curve. If such coordination is possible, the measurement of amylose content could be standardised globally. 

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