CLASSIFICATION OF 7 SPECIES OF CACTACEAE BASED ON THEIR CHEMICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL-PROPERTIES

Fast protein liquid and ion-exchange chromatography, fluorescence, FT- IR spectra, and elemental and electrophoretic analyses were used to ch aracterize proteins from seven species of Cactaceae, which can be divi ded into three groups based on their chemical and biochemical properti es, Some cactus juice proteins precipitated by ammonium sulfate yielde d complex electrophoretic patterns where the major bands correspond to approximately 24,000 Da and 32,000 Da in the presence of sodium dodec yl sulfate (SDS), The SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoretic (PAGE) pa tterns did not differ by the year of sample collection (1986 and 1992) . Chromatographic analysis showed that protein characterization of cac tus juices may be useful in cactus taxonomy at the family level, Fluor escence emission and FT-IR spectra of studied cacti species were measu red to compare protein structure, Differences in the emission peak res ponse and fluorescence intensity, as well as the changes in amide band content were found.