Morphological characterization and in vitro digestibility of seven Lathyrus sativus (grass pea) accessions originating from Eurasia, Africa, and Canada

Abstract

Lathyrus sativus is considered as an important economical source of high-quality proteins and adaptability to global climate change. To detect accessions useful for future breeding strategies, the genetic variability among and within seven Lathyrus sativus accessions was assessed by morphological characters and the in vitro digestibility study. An important genetic diversity was found using various morphological traits. The significant heterogeneity revealed by variance analysis (ANOVA) and correlation test could be elucidated by the different geographical origins of the studied accessions and the natural selection of grass pea. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) exhibited the accumulation of several genotypes in the same cluster which confirm that these genotypes are not dispersed according to their origin. Whereas, the individuals of grass pea from Ethiopia were collected in distinct group indicating that these samples are close each other’s and are different from the other accessions. In the same aim, the in vitro digestion model showed that most of the proteins were digested after 60-min incubation except the β-lathyrin protein. The different digestion kinetics found could be used as a method to distinguish different crop accessions. In fact, the densitometry analysis of β-lathyrin protein band showed that grass pea from Ethiopia, Germany, Bangladesh, and Morocco were more digested than grass pea from Canada, Afghanistan, and Greece in gastric phase, and Grass pea from Afghanistan and Germany were more digested than the rest of the samples in duodenal phase.