Genetic Diversity Analysis of Chickpea (Cicerarietinuml.) Genotypes Through Est -SSR Markers and Seed Protein Profiling

Abstract

Expressed sequence tags simple sequence repeats (EST-SSRs) are important sources for investigation of genetic diversity and molecular marker development. Similar to genomic· SSRs, the EST-SSRs are useful marker for many applications in genetics and plant breeding such as genetic diversity analysis, molecular mapping and cross-transferability across related species and genera. In spite of low polymorphism, these markers show variation in the expressed part of the genome. In the present investigation EST -SSRs and total seed protein profiling (SDS-PAGE) are used to determine the genetic diversity between twenty chickpea genotypes. In this research, a total oftwenty pairs ofEST-SSRs primers were used to find out the genetic diversity, out of twenty markers, only seventeen pairs of primers showed good amplification over twenty chickpea genotype. Thirteen primer pairs (76.5%) were monomorphic and four primer pairs (23.5%) were polymorphic in the chickpea genotypes. The average polymorphism information content (PIC) values of the primers was ranged from 0.5 to 0.997 indicating a wide coverage across the genome and genetic similarity. SDS-PAGE results revealed that seeds of chickpea genotypes are rich in storage proteins with a number of stable bands in the gel. The major components of all the species were in the molecular weight range from 95 to 11 kDa, with the variation in relative mobility values. The present study suggests that with appropriate primer and reaction condition, EST-SSRs marker and SDS-PAGE can be used effectively to establish genetic identity among chickpea at both genus and species levels for polygenetic analysis.