Electrophoretic and Immunological Comparisons of Soluble Root Proteins of Medicago sativa L. Genotypes in the Cold Hardened and Non-Hardened Condition.

Electrophoretic and immunological properties of the soluble root protein complement of 6 Medicago sativa L. genotypes in the cold hardened and non-hardened physiological condition were compared. These 6 genotypes were chosen to represent a range of abilities to survive exposure to subfreezing temperatures when in the cold hardened condition.A zone of highly charged and/or low molecular weight protein components were found to be more prevalent in the protein complements of the cold-hardened material than the non-hardened material.Immunodiffusion plate tests were not so definitive as the electrophoretic patterns for identifying the genotypes or physiological conditions, but did corroborate the electrophoretic interpretations.