Full Length Research Paper

Characterization of indigenous Pyrus germplasm of Azad Jammu and Kashmir revealed by SDS-PAGE analysis

Maqsood Ahmed¹*, Muhammad Akbar Anjum², Malik Ashiq Rabbani³ and Lutful Hassan⁴

¹Department of Horticulture, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Faculty of Agriculture, Rawalakot, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan.

²University College of Agriculture, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan.

³Plant Genetic Resources Institute, National Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad, Pakistan.

⁴Department of Plant Breeding and Molecular Genetics, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Faculty of Agriculture, Rawalakot, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: msqahmed@yahoo.com. Tel: +92 3005030719.    

Abbreviations: AFLP, Amplified fragment length polymorphism; APS, ammonium per sulphate; RAPD, random amplified polymorphic DNA; RFLP, random fragment length polymorphism; SDS-PAGE, sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis; TEMED, N,N,N,N-tetramethylethylenediamine; UPGMA, unweighed pair group method with arithmetic means.

Accepted 22 September, 2009

   Abstract

Soluble proteins of sixty pear genotypes/varieties were extracted from their leaves, separated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and distinguished by protein banding pattern. Seven types of protein with 12 to 20 bands were observed. SD45 (Kashmiri nakh) showed the maximum (20) and KT60 (Keiffer) the minimum (12) number of bands. Remaining accessions exhibited less variability having 15 to 19 bands. The accessions were classified into 12 groups and individual accessions varied from 0.71 to 0.97 similarity level. Moreover, the highest similarity was expressed among groups 1 to 7. UPGMA cluster analysis distributed the accessions into three clusters, seven sub-clusters along with 11 identical groups, one independent group and two independent accessions. There were 37 accessions in cluster I, 16 in II, 3 in III, 2 in independent group 12 and 2 accessions existed independently. The most variable accession, KT60 (Keiffer) fell independently, had the highest genetic diversity. The findings show that the pear accessions have different protein profile irrespective of their geographic locations and climatic conditions.

Key words: Accessions, pear, Pyrus germplasm, SDS-PAGE, soluble protein, variability.