Distribution of seed protein fractions and amino acids in different anatomical parts of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.)

Studies on protein fractionation in seed coat, embryo, cotyledons and whole seed were made to observe the differences, if any, between chickpea and pigeonpea. Results indicated that globulin was the major fraction of embryo and cotyledons of these legumes. Seed-coat nitrogen was observed to be mostly comprised of nonprotein nitrogen and glutelin fractions and thus differed from other components in both chickpea and pigeonpea. The albumin fraction of cotyledons of both crops had the highest concentration of sulphur amino acids, methionine and cystine. Glutelin contained a considerably higher concentration of methionine and cystine than did globulin in chickpea and pigeonpea. This suggests that lines with higher glutelin should be identified to improve their protein quality. The amino acid compositions of different seed components did not show large differences between these two pulse crops.Submitted as JA no. 180 by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).