CHARACTERIZATION OF EUROPEAN OAT GERM PLASM - ALLELIC VARIATION AT COMPLEX AVENIN LOCI DETECTED BY ACID POLYACRYLAMIDE-GEL ELECTROPHORESIS

European oat germ plasm involving 252 varieties, landraces, and breedi ng lines has been characterised by allelic constitution at three indep endent complex avenin loci. A total of 26 avenin alleles (blocks), inc luding 7 at the Ave1 (Avn A), 10 at the Ave2 (Avn B), and 9 at the Ave 3 (Avn C) loci were revealed. The avenin block variants were shown to be coded by gene clusters of 2-5 single expressed genes. A catalogue o f the identified avenin blocks as well as a list of the avenin phenoty pes is presented. It has been discovered that about 8% of the oat vari eties were heterogeneous comprising two or three different avenin prof iles. The varieties assayed have been classified into 79 avenin phenot ypes made up by the different alleles. Forty-six of these phenotypes w ere distinguished uniquely, while the other 33 were shared by groups p ossessing from 2 to 41 genotypes each. Members within these groups had certain ancestors in common. Non-random patterns of both the avenin a llele and phenotype distributions have been found.