Inter- and interspecific serological relationships in Pellia epiphylla complex

Abstract

Antigenic proteins were used as markers for the study of relationships between three liverwort species from P. epiphylla complex. It has recently been shown that the electrophoretic phenotypes of this species suggested an amphiploid origin of P. borealis. Two sibling species: P. epiphylla -species S and -species N could have probably represented the parental species for P. borealis. We examined three clones of P. borealis from different localities using immunodiffusion. Then we compared them with P. epiphylla species S and N as well as with the mixture of proteins of P. epiphylla S and N samples. The results indicate that polyploid P. borealis shows an identical immunological pattern to that of the mixture of proteins of putative parental species. Only in one case the result resembled much more the pattern of P. epiphylla S proteins. The sibling species P. epiphylla S and N showed antigenic difference but the nature of the differences requires further studies. Antigenic pro-perties of proteins from P. epiphylla S and N and of their allopolyploid - P. borealis, indicated some specifity of the protein spectrum in each of the parental species and intermediate character of proteins in the polyploid forms.