ARABINOGALACTAN PROTEINS IN EMBRYOGENIC AND NON-EMBRYOGENIC MAIZE CALLI

Abstract

Maize is one of the world's three most widely cultivated crops (along with wheat and rice) and it is the most economically important cereal crop on a worldwide basis. Tissue culture and embryogenesis induction from somatic cells are the main techniques necessary for practical application of advanced biotechnological tools for targeted improvement of the plant. Technical developments within this field of biotechnology have allowed greater reproducibility of experimental results and numerous investigations have demonstrated the utility of these techniques in the study of many biological topics, especially in genetics, plant physiology and development. In our experiments, callus induction and plant regeneration were tested using immature embryos of maize (Zea mays L.). Yield of embryogenic callus was highest when immature embryos were used as a primary explant and reached level of 10%. Protein extracts from embryogenic and non-embryogenic calli were used for western dot blot with specific antibodies against three epitopes of arabinogalactan proteins (antibodies JIM 8, JIM 13 and LM 2). These epitopes are considered as markers for embryogenic cells in various species. We have detected presence of arabinogalactan protein epitopes in extract from embryogenic callus, while extract from nonembryogenic callus showed only weak or no signal after western dot blot.