158
increased lysine content in some cultivars, this amino
acid still remains the first limiting amino acid in all va-
rieties. Milling does not induce any dramatic changes
in the amino acid composition of rice and thus the
amino acid score is unlikely to change significantly due
to polishing (Sotelo et al, 1994; Tobekia et al, 1981).
Table 5 shows the correlation among the different
amino acids including protein content. Significant
negative correlations was observed between protein
content and Asp or Thr or Ser or Gly or Ala or Met or
Trp or His indicating that increase in protein content
will result at the expense of these amino acids. A
positive correlation was observed between Lys and
Asp or Thr or Gly or Iso or His while a negative cor-
relation was seen between Lys and Glu. The second
limiting amino acid threonine showed significant
correlation with Ser or Gly or Ala or Cys or Met or
His or Lys. Negative correlation was also observed
between Thr and Val or Leu. Significant correlations
was observed between many combinations of amino
acid in the Indian rice cultivars. The results suggest
that many Indian rice varieties possess better amino
acid profiles and exhibit superior nutritional quali-ties which could be utilized in breeding varieties
with improved amino acid composition.3 .5 Fatty acids composition
Box plot showing the distribution of various fatty
acids in 85 Indian rice cultivars is presented in Figure 2.
The major fatty acids were palmitic (range 20 –
2 6%), oleic (range 30 – 37%) and linoleic acids (33 –
42%) which accounted for more than 92% of the
total fatty acids. Studies on non-glutinous rice cul-
tivars from Japan also showed similar content of
the major fatty acids palmitic, oleic and linoleic
acids (Kitta et al, 2005). The Mean ± SD content of
myristic , stearic andα-linolenic acids was 0.32 ±
0.06, 2.63 ± 0.50 and 1.52 ± 0.23 respectively. α-li-
nolenic content ranged from low of 0.93 to as high
as 2.19%. Capric acid was detected at very low lev-
els ranging between 0.02 – 0.32 % in the present
study. There is no report on the presence of Capric
acid in rice and this is the first report of the kind. A
sample chromatogram of one rice fatty acid profile
showing distinct peak of capric acid is depicted in
Figure 3. Detection of capric acid was achieved by
Figure 2. Box plot showing the distribution of various fatty acids in 8 5 high yielding Indian rice cultivarsCapric MyristicPalmiticStearicArachidic
BehenicLignocericPalmitoleic
OleicEicosenoic
NervonicLinoleic
LinolenicTsfa
Tmusfa
Tpusfa4035302520151050Percent fatty acid