Protein Quantification of Chickpea Genotypes at Different Stress Conditions

Chickpea is the third most important pulse crop of the world. Cool season crops face intermittent drought. Pre-exposure to a dehydration shock may improve adaptive response during subsequent dehydration treatment in a cool season crops like chickpea. To identify the water-stress-induced difference in protein content in drought-susceptible and drought-tolerant chickpea cultivars under natural/green house condition was conducted. Chickpea is considered as the major source of dietary proteins among the plant species. Protein content was evaluated in cultivated genotypes of Cicer species with a view to investigate possibilities of genetic improvement in seed nutritional quality. Four important genotypes of chickpea viz; Pusa-1103, Pusa-362, Pusa-256 and SBD-377 were used as experimental material for protein profiling. Maximum protein content was recorded in Pusa-1103, whereas minimum protein content was noticed in Pusa-256. Protein content was also recorded on the basis of seed colour of the chickpea genotypes. Maximum as well as minimum protein content was recorded in Light Brown group genotypes Pusa-1103(28.75%) and Pusa-256(20.89%) respectively. Water stress 10% PEG treatment shows no difference in protein profiling of these verieties in drought and normal condition. SDS-PAGE was utilized to detect variations in protein profiles of these genotypes.