Characterizing the diversity of grain phytic acid content in Indian rice landraces by multivariate genetic analyses

Phytic acid (PA) acts as chelator of cationic mineral elements iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) and obstructs their absorption in the human gut. We have evaluated a set of 162 traditional rice landraces for phytic acid phosphorus (PA-P), inorganic phosphorus (Pi) and total phosphorus (TP). Wide variability was observed for PA-P, Pi and TP ranging from 1.12 to 3 mg/g, 0.004 to 0.16 mg/g and 1.17 to 3.04 mg/g respectively. The mineral micronutrients, Fe and Zn were not in correlation with PA-P, Pi and TP implicating the possibility of their independent improvement while PAP showed a significant positive correlation with TP and significant negative correlation with Pi. Principal component analysis (PCA) identified two principal components PC1 and PC2, explaining 50.6 % and 32.1 % of the total variation, respectively. Cluster analysis grouped the accessions into four clusters. The study has also led to the identification of promising donors such as P1490 and Gowri with low PA content to be utilized in rice biofortification programmes.