Karyotype variation and biochemical analysis of five Vicia species

Abstract Background Fabaceae is considered as the third largest family, which includes more than 727 genera and 20,000 species. The genus Vicia has from 180 to 210 species. Vicia species have a great economical and agricultural importance. Karyotype study of chromosomes and SDS-PAGE for seed storage proteins (soluble and non-soluble proteins) were carried out on five Vicia species (Vicia macrocarpa, Vicia sativa, Vicia narbonensis, Vicia ervilia) collected from IPK, Germany, and Vicia faba from Agriculture Research Centre, Giza, Egypt, to find out the phylogenetic relationships among these species. Result From karyotype of studied Vicia species chromosomes, it was found that V. macrocarpa, V. sativa, and V. faba had six pairs of chromosome (2n = 12) while V. narbonensis and V. ervilia had seven pairs of chromosome (2n = 14). The most related species was found between V. ervilia and V. narbonensis (77.8%) depending on seed soluble protein similarity level, but between V. narbonensis and V. macrocarpa was 70.0% depending on seed non-soluble protein similarity level, while between V. ervilia and V. narbonensis, the most related species was 69.0% depending on collective data of both soluble and non-soluble seed storage protein. Conclusion The phylogenetic relationships between the studied species depending on collective data of protein markers and karyotype characteristic were as follows: V. ervilia is closely related to V. narbonensis, while V. narbonensis is related to V. macrocarpa and V. ervilia, but the degree of relation between V. narbonensis and V. macrocarpa is less than the relation between V. narbonensis and V. ervilia. Equally, while V. sativa is closely related to V. macrocarpa, but V. faba is distant from all other studied species.