Is it true aleurone in the thick aleurone rice mutant?

Abstract Background Diet-related non communicable diseases (NCDs) impose a heavy burden on human health worldwide. Rice is a good target for diet-related disease prevention strategies because it is widely consumed. Liu et al. demonstrated that increasing the number of cell layers and thickness of putative aleurone in ta2-1 (thick aleurone 2-1) mutant rice enhances simultaneously the content of multiple micronutrients. However, the increases of aleurone-associated nutrients were not proportional to the increases in the aleurone thickness. Results In this study, first, cytohistological analyses and transmission electron microscopy demonstrated that the multilayer in ta2-1 exhibited aleurone cell structural features. Second, we detected an increase in insoluble fibre and insoluble bound-phenolic compounds, a shift in aleurone-specific NNSP (neutral non-starch polysaccharide) profile, enhancement of phytate and minerals such as iron, zinc, potassium, magnesium, sulphur, and manganese, enrichment of triacylglycerol and phosphatidylcholine but slight reduction in free fatty acid, and an increase in oleic fatty acid composition. Conclusion These findings support our hypothesis that the expanded aleurone-like layers in ta2-1 maintained the distinctive aleurone features and composition associated with true aleurone. We provide perspectives to achieve even greater filling of this expanded micronutrient sink to alleviate the burden of NCDs.