Seed Proteins

Abstract

The heroic age of the study of seed proteins is the period of about twenty five years, from 1890, when Osborne and his collaborators made their extensive investigations. During this time fractions from seeds provided one of the most profitable sources of material for the development and application of the classical techniques of protein chemistry. As Lugg (1949) has noted: “For many years the only substantial information about plant proteins as substances pertained to those proteins which had been extracted in almost pure, and sometimes almost individual, state from seeds.” This information was in large measure due to Osborne’s sustained and patient work. It became clear, from his investigations of many types of seeds, that while from some of them it was comparatively easy to obtain protein fractions which were sufficiently free from extraneous matter to deposit in crystalline form, yet with others, notably the cereal grains, the protein was extremely intractable material. Indeed, the triumphs and the miseries of the study of seed proteins are reflected historically; Schmiedeberg’s (1877) early preparation of crystalline protein material from the brazil nut may be contrasted with the fact that crude wheat gluten is still prepared essentially by Beccari’s (1728) technique, reported to the Bologna Academy in 1745, of gently washing away, in a stream of water, the bulk of the starch from wheaten flour.