Quality Improvement in Perilla III. Varietal Differences of Protein Content and Amino Acid Composition in Perilla

Korean local collected strains of perilla were analyzed on their protein and amino-acid contents in the seed. The strains analyzed were 80 of which grown in the experimental field of Crop Experiment Station at Suwon in 1991. This experiment was performed to obtain the basic informations on the varietal differences of protein and amino-acid contents and further applied in the breeding project for quality improvement of perilla. The seed protein contents of 80 perilla varieties ranged from 17.9% to 24.6% and the average content was 24.6%. There were no differences in protein contents according to the maturity and 1,000 seed weight, but differed by the seed coat color showing 1.4% higher content in light gray than that of drak brown, which may suggest that the seed coat color could be used as a marker gene for breeding high protein varieties. While the total essential amino-acid contents of collected perilla ranged from 36.41% to 44.85%, the mean of 40.55%, the non-essential amino-acid contents was 47.23%～60.01% with the mean of 55.29%. Moreover, there was high positive correlation between the essential amino-acid contents and seed coat color. The essential amino-acids of perilla has an exceptionally high content of arginine, leucine, but methionine indeed being almost marginal. Of the essential amino-acids, lysine, methionine and valine were contained higher compared with the FAO recommendation level.