SEED STORAGE PROTEIN VARIATION IN ARACHIS SPECIES

Seventy-two accessions, representing 22 species from sections Arachis, Erectoides, Extranervosae, and Triseminalae of the genus Arachis, wer e screened for seed storage protein polymorphism. Variation was detect ed between sections, between genome types, between species, and in som e cases between different accessions of the same species or different seeds of the same accession. Arachis duranensis and one accession of A . cardenasii were found to have identical protein patterns. The greate st dissimilarity was found between species of the section Extranervosa e and species of the section Triseminalae. Those of section Erectoides showed much similarity with some species of section Arachis. Protein polymorphism was shown to distinguish the two subspecies of A. hypogae a (fastigiata and hypogaea) in 27 of 28 cases. The seed protein profil e of A. monticola was a combination of seed protein profiles from the two A. hypogaea subspecies. The relatedness between the various specie s was calculated and those that had the greatest similarity with A. hy pogaea were A. spegazzinii and A. batizocoi.