Genetic polymorphism and quantitative variation of alpha-amylases from rye endosperm

α-Amylase isozymes from rye endosperm were analysed by means of isoelectric focusing, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, immunoelectrophoresis and colorimetric assay. Α-AMY 1 (high pI) group was separated into 13 IEF bands, whereas in group α-AMY2 (low pI) 2 intensive and 6-8 faint bands were found. Two linked (2±1 cM) polymorphic loci and a single locus with two alleles encoding for α-AMY 1 and α-AMY 2 groups, respectively, were identified after genetic analysis of the IEF patterns. All α-amylase isozymes developed on PAGE, were shown to belong to α-AMY 1 group. It was demonstrated that a single PAGE isozyme corresponds to 2-4 separate IEF bands and that most of the IEF bands can be attributed to more than one PAGE isozyme. The activity of α-amylases from PAGE zone I was 2.3 times higher than the activity of zone II isozymes. A strong correlation between the activity and protein amount of particular α-AMY 1 isozymes (r=0.94) was found.