Differential effects of glutamine and arginine on 7S globulin accumulationduring the maturation of oil palm somatic embryos

The low vigour of plantlets resulting from oil palm somatic embryos may be due to insufficient levels of deposited storage proteins. Thus, in order to improve embryonic maturation and the vigour of regenerated plantlets, we i nvestigated the effects of modifying the culture conditions with respect to the accumulation of the major oil palm storage proteins, the 7S globulins. In this study, the effect of arginine and glutamine on globulin accumulati on was studied using somatic embryos of two different genotypes. Arginine a nd glutamine were both found to enhance protein accumulation but in differe nt ways, which were best illustrated by measurements of soluble proteins pe r embryo and 7S globulin content per dry weight. Arginine increased the lev el of soluble proteins by 46% irrespective of the clone, and glutamine by 1 9% and 63% depending on the clone. The clone which accumulated the least pr otein in the presence of glutamine was that which contained the more protei n initially. Only arginine favoured the accumulation of 7S globulin content per dry weight, irrespective of the clone considered (+26%). This study wi ll enable further investigations of specific storage proteins as potential markers for regenerated plantlets vigour.