Evidence for seed proteins somaclonal variation in the progenies of regenerated plants of Pisum sativum L

Somaclonal variants are usually observed in regenerated plants, but papers on their possibility to overcome meiosis and to be transmitted to the progeny are still rare. In our experiments, total proteins were extracted from single seeds from pea (Pisum sativum L.) plants regenerated from 1-year-old calli and from control plants grown in the greenhouse. SDS-PAGE analysis showed a homogeneous electrophoretic pattern (indicated as type N) of the total proteins extracted from seed fragments of 52 control plants. Seed proteins from 17 regenerated plants showed the same pattern of the controls, but polypeptide differences were found in seeds from 13 regenerated plants represented by three types (A, B, C) of somaclonal variant patterns: in particular polypeptides with molecular weights of 22.5, 34.0 and 41.7 kiloDaltons (kDa) are differentially represented in the three electrophoretic patterns. Hence, these variants are shown to be heritable, at least in the first generation.