Discrepancies among published amino acid sequences of soybean leghemoglobins: experimental evidence against cultivar differences as the sources of the discrepancies.

Despite discrepancies among charged amino acid residues in published amino acid sequences, isoelectric focusing experiments failed to detect varietal differences in soybean leghemoglobins a, c1, c2, or c3. Leghemoglobins from 69 domesticated soybean (Glycine max) cultivars and plant introductions and 18 wild soybean (Glycine soja) plant introductions were compared; the sources included soybean cultivars used by research groups in obtaining amino acid sequences and most of the ancestors of North American soybean cultivars. Thus, at least some of the discrepancies among published amino acid sequences of soybean leghemoglobins are due to sequencing difficulties rather than structural differences among the leghemoglobins used by different research groups.