Molecular investigation between four Himalayan pines of India through random amplified polymorphic DNA markers

Abstract

Studies were undertaken to identify genetic relationship in four different species of Pinus L. through randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. A total of 500 DNA fragments ranging from 234 to 1353 bp were amplified using 5 selected primers. The number of amplification products produced by a primer ranged from as low as 4 to a maximum of 13, with an average of 8 bands per primer. The cluster analysis revealed one major cluster and one outlier. In the major cluster, Pinus roxburghii from Malithi, Pinus wallichiana from Malithi, P. wallichiana from Taradevi H.P, Pinus kesiya from Taradevi H.P, Pinus gerardiana from Chamba and P. roxburghii from Chamba falls into subcluster 1 and P. kesiya from Jubbal (east) and P. kesiya from Jubbal (west) falls into subcluster 2. The similarity coefficient value varied from 0.54 to 0.88. The highest similarity coefficient (0.88) was detected between samples collected from P. wallichiana (Malithi) and P. roxburghii (Malithi) as well as between P. roxburghii (Malithi) & P. wallichiana (Taradevi, H.P) and the lowest (0.54) was detected between the P. gerardiana (Raspa) and P. kesiya (South Vietnam). The level of polymorphism in our study was not so much which showed that samples used for the analysis could have close relationship.

Key words: Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), similarity coefficient, polymorphism, Pinus, primer.