Study of the Diversity in Different Cultivars of Pistacia vera L. Resistant to Drought and Salinity: Comparing Protein Patterns Using SDS-PAGE Method

Pistachio is one of the most important agricultural products that have always been associated with Iran, and its production has a long historical background in our country. In this research, protein patterns of 10 cultivars of Pistacia vera L. were compared in which cultivars grown in normal conditions where compared with cultivars grown in salinity and water shortage to determine diversity. For this purpose, after extraction of storage proteins of seeds, the density of proteins was determined using the Bradford method. Then, the SDS-PAGE method was used to separate extracted proteins. In order to analyze electrophoretic data, we allocated 0 to absence and 1 to presence of each of bands. The results showed that stresses resulted in expression or loss of expression of some of the bands in cultivars, and the total distance between bands in each of the cultivars from origin of bands’ movements from the gels was considered as one of the studied characteristics. The data was analyzed using cluster and Principal component analysis using SPSS software. Analysis of variance showed that average protein concentration of species was 19.59% and that the maximum protein percentage belongs to the Badami cultivar of Rafsanjan with 22.09%, and that the minimum protein percentage belongs to the Fandoghi cultivar of Rafsanjan with 13.98%. There was a significant difference among the amounts of proteins at the 5% level. In qualitative analysis of storage proteins of seeds, a total of 18 bands were observed. The maximum number of protein bands belongs to Kalehghochi and Fandoghi cultivars of Sirjan (saline area). In cluster analysis, species were classified in 10 different groups.