Seed polypeptides from several cultivars of peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) have been compared by means of a two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Protein was extracted from the defatted peanut meal by homogenizing in 5 millimolar K2CO3-9.5 molar urea. After addition of Nonidet P40 (2%, v/v) The peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an economically important source of vegetable protein, but is relatively low in its content of methionine, lysine and tryptophan (1, 11). There are a few reports suggesting that certain genotypes exist within the species that contain a better balance of nutritionally important amino acids than found in commercial cultivars (1,3,11).Current methods for screening variants for differences in protein composition are generally tedious and often inaccurate. For example, one-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, although widely employed, resolves only a limited number of polypeptides (4,8,10,11,19). In the peanut, the proteins are very poorly defmed and are contained mainly in two major globulin fractions, arachin and conarachin, which together constitute 97% of the protein of the meal. Each of these globulins consists of several polypeptide species, which are thought to exist together as subunits of large multimeric complexes. In addition, many of the polypeptides appear to have similar molecular weights (2, 20). In this study I have characterized the proteins of peanut meal using a two-dimensional electrophoretic technique which separates the 'This research was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant PCM 76-81071 to R. M. Roberts. polypeptides according to their isoelectric point in the first dimension and by subunit size in the second. The method has been employed to distinguish different cultivars according to their polypeptide composition. It also allows application of up to 500 ,ug of protein on a single slab gel, thus providing the potential for purifying significant quantities of individual polypeptide components.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
SEED MATERIALSeeds from the following peanut (A. hypogaea L.) cultivars were provided by A. J. Norden of the University of Florida from their breeding lines: Florunner, Florigiant, Early Bunch, Jenkins Jumbo Runner, Altika, UF 75102, UF 77318, 439-16-10-3, 439-16-10-3-1, 439-16-10-3-2, and 439-16-10-1-1. After removal of skins and embryonic axes, the cotyledons were ground in a mortar with a pestle. The ground material was then defatted with cold ethyl ether by repeated extractions until the peanut meals were essentially fat-free. The defatted meals were stored at -20 C. CHEMICALS SDS (specially pure) was from British Drug House, Poole, UK.; ampholines were purchased from LKB, Uppsala, Sweden; urea was bought from Pierce Chemical Co., Rockford, Ill., Nonidet P-40 was obtained from Particle Data Laboratories, Ehmhurst, Ill. Coomassie brilliant blue R-250 and N,N'diallyltartardiamide (DATD) were products of Bio-Rad Laboratories, Richmond, Calif. Protein standards and agarose were from Sigma Chemical Co. Reagents f...