RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Rice leaves and stems, which can be used as rice straw for livestock feed, accumulate soluble oxalate. The oxalate content often reaches 5% of the dry weight leaves. Excess uptake of oxalate-rich plants causes mineral deficiencies in vertebrates, so it is important to reduce the oxalate content in rice leaves to produce high-quality rice straw. However, the mechanism of oxalate accumulation in rice has remained unknown. OBJECTIVES: To understand metabolic networks relating oxalate accumulation in rice. METHODS: In this study, we performed metabolome analysis of rice M2 population generated by ion-beam irradiation using CE-MS. RESULTS: The result showed wide variation of oxalate contents in M2 plants compared with those of control plants. Multivariate analyses of metabolome dataset revealed that oxalate accumulation was strongly related with anionic compounds such as 2OG and succinate. For low-oxalate plants, four patterns of metabolic alterations affected oxalate contents in the M2 leaves were observed. In M3 plants, we found putative low-oxalate line obtained from low-oxalate M2 mutant. CONCLUSIONS: These findings would lead to produce the low-oxalate rice and to understand the oxalate synthesis in plants.These findings would lead to produce the low-oxalate rice and to understand the oxalate synthesis in plants.