Full Length Research Paper

Molecular analysis of genetic diversity in elite II synthetic hexaploid wheat screened against Barley yellow dwarf virus

Huma Saffdar¹, Muhammad Ashfaq¹*, Shahid Hameed², Irfan ul Haque¹ and Abdul Mujeeb-Kazi²

¹Department of Plant Pathology, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan-4600.

²National Agricultural Research Centre, Park Road Islamabad, Pakistan.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: mashfaq1642@gmail.com. Tel.: +92-51-9290239.

Accepted 3 June, 2009

The presence of sufficient genetic diversity in the germplam is an important prerequisite for the improve-ment and efficient use of available material. Traditionally, the data on agronomic, morphological and physiological plants traits are used to estimate the genetic diversity. But now molecular markers are available for authenticated and reliable studies for genetic diversity. The present study was conducted to assess the genetic diversity of Elite-II synthetic hexaploid (SH) wheat by genome DNA fingerprinting as revealed by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. Ten decamer RAPD primers (OPG-1, OPG-2, OPG-3, OPG-4, OPG-5, OPA-3, OPA-4, OPA-5, OPA-8, and OPA-15) were used to evaluate the diversity profile of the selected SH entries. Primers OPG-2 and OPA-4 gave the highly polymorphic results. The pair wise similarity values shows that genotypes 1, 20 and 30 have most closest relationship with highest similarity values i.e., 100% while genotypes 9 and 13 show dictinct relationship with minimum similarity value that is, 54%. Therefore, the allelic variation of the SH resistance germplasm is a potent means to enrich and improve bread wheat cultivars where BYDV is a production threat and these can be used in future wheat breeding programme.

Key words: Random amplified polymorphic DNA, primers, genotypes, synthetic hexaploid, wheat.