Identification of Cultivars of Grasses and Forage Legumes by SDS-PAGE of Seed Proteins

Abstract

The banding patterns produced following polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of total seed storage proteins in the presence of sodium dodecylsulphate (SDSPAGE) have proved an effective laboratory method for distinguishing cultivars of the largely cross-fertilized pasture grasses and legumes despite their high innate genetic variability (Ferguson and Grabe 1984, 1986; Gardiner et al. 1986; Gardiner and Forde 1987, 1988 a; Clark et al. 1989). The positions of the stained bands visible in the gel following electrophoresis are determined by the molecular weight of the seed proteins or their constituent polypeptides and differences between cultivars arise because of the polymorphic nature of seed storage proteins within each species. Similar techniques have been used extensively by workers concerned with cultivar identification of cultivated inbreeding crops (Cooke 1984, 1989) but to a lesser extent for differentiating cultivars of outbreeding species (Gilliland 1989).