Abstract: At 18 days after flowering, it was observed that the big central vacuoles in tile cotyledon cells began to subdivide or pinch-off into smaller ones, in which the storage proteins gradually accumulated, and the protein bodies thus formed. Three patterns of protein accumulation in the vacuoles were noticed, in one of them, the storage proteins deposited onto some regions of the inner surface of the tonoplast and new protein bodies formed by a budding-off process of the storage proteins enclosed by a portion of the tonoplast membrane. In other two patterns, storage proteins accumulated in vacuoles as pr oteinaceous lumps or as flocculent materials. The relation between the patterns of storage protein accunmlation and soybean agglutinin (SBA) accumulation in vacuoles and the pathways of intracellular transport of storage proteins are discussed.

Key words: Soybean cotyledons, Protein body formation, Storage protein accumulation in vacuoles