Two Egyptian soybeans varieties, Giza111 and Crawford were selected for the current study. Their seeds were exposed to three doses of gamma-radiation 150, 200, and 250 Gy in order to study their mutagenic effects in the treated seeds and two following generations at various levels. In the first generation (M1), two doses (150 and 200 Gy) were the most effective in enhancement of some agronomic traits like number of stem branches, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod and weight of 100 seeds and crop yield.
Analysis of protein profiles using SDS-PAGE showed variation among the treatments in each variety, where a total of 38 protein bands were recorded. Three of which were unique bands, one unique band of size 37 kDa was found in the treated seeds before germination (M0) in Crawford at 250 Gy treatment. The other two unique bands (102 and 162 kDa) were found in M2 generation in Crawford at 150 Gy and Giza111 at 200 Gy, respectively.
ISSR analysis using five primers gave a total 39 ISSR bands, 30 of which were polymorphic and 4 were unique bands. The primer HB14 amplified 6 DNA bands, 2 were unique bands (895 &1050 bp), both in M1 generation of Giza111 at 150 Gy, while primer 844 and 862 amplified only one unique band both found in M0 Giza111 control. They have a molecular size of 888 and 900 bp, respectively. Although, UBC-827 amplified the highest number of bands (8) no unique bands were found.