IMMUNOCHEMICAL EXAMINATION OF THE SURFACE PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF VARIOUS DICOTYLEDONOUS AND MONOCOTYLEDONOUS GLOBULIN SEED STORAGE PROTEINS

Immunochemical analysis of the surface properties of seed globulins in dicated that the 11S seed globulins of monocotyledonous and dicotyledo nous plants possibly share some similarity in their primary structures , i.e. amino acid sequence on their surface topography as well in thei r structural conformation. Although homologies were found in all globu lins, stronger antigenic responses were found to occur between the ama ranth globulin antibody and the purified globulins from monocotyledono us than those originating from dicotyledonous seeds. Homologies in pri mary structure were found to occur almost exclusively in the 'basic' ( 20-27 000 Dal type subunit of the respective globulins. Data would imp ly that gene families encoding for these different proteins were deriv ed from a common ancestral gene and must have been present before dive rgence of the angiosperms into dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous pla nts. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.