Evidence for heat stress-induced proteins in field grown peas (Pisum sativum L.)

It is well known that chemical and physical changes in environmental conditions can modulate plant gene expression. The present paper describes the "heat shock" response of pea (Pisum sativum L.) plants grown under glasshouse conditions. Plant exposures to gradually increasing temperatures up to an extreme high temperature, as would occur in the field, induce the synthesis of heat stress proteins. The electrophoretic patterns of proteins extracted from petals and vexilla of stressed and unstressed plants show both qualitative and quantitative differences. Particularly, plants grown under heat stress reveal the presence of four new polypeptides not detectable in plants grown under non-stress conditions. On the contrary, no variations were observed in the patterns of seed proteins