Ploidy Effects in Isogenic Populations of Alfalfa

Abstract

Photosynthetically-active protoplasts isolated from isogenic sets of dip-loid-tetraploid and tetraplold-octoplold alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) leaves were used to investigate the consequences of polyploidization on several aspects related to photosynthesis at the cellular level. Protoplasts from the tetraploid population contained twice the amount of DNA, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (RuBPCase), chlorophyll (Chi), and chloroplasts per cell compared to protoplasts from the diploid population. Although protoplasts from the octoploid population contained nearly twice the