Technical improvements in two‐dimensional electrophoresis increase the level of genetic variation detected in wheat‐seedling proteins

The level of genetic variation revealed by two‐dimensional electrophoresis of proteins from seedlings of two wheat lines strongly depends on the technical procedures. Improvements in extraction and electrophoresis procedures relative to earlier experiments on the same material led to a significant increase in the genetic variation revealed: 15.2 % instead of 6.7 % of the spots were genetically variable. The improved procedure is based on (i) precipipation of proteins from wheat seedlings with trichloroacetic acid and acetone, (ii) solubilization of the proteins with a solution containing urea, potassium carbonate and sodium dodecyl sulfate, (iii) isoelectric focusing in an optimized pH gradient, obtained with a mixture of carrier ampholytes (Pharmalyte and Servalyt), and (iv) running elecrophoresis in the second dimension on gels with increased surface.