Genetic relationship and diversity analysis of Clitoria ternatea variants and Clitoria biflora using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers

Abstract

Clitoria ternatea and C. biflora are multipurpose forage legumes. They provide bioactive compounds for medicinal use and also are an ornamental plant. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based molecular markers technique; random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) was employed to identify the polymorphism and genetic diversity between four genotypes of different variants A, B and C of C ternatea and D of C. biflora which belongs to family fabaceae (subfamily- papillionaceae). In RAPD analysis, cluster analysis of 1-0 bivariate data was carried out; 100 random primers revealed a total of 202 polymorphic fragments. The data was further used for constructing dendrogram. The dendrogram indicate that genomic sequences of all four Clitoria genotypes were not clustered together even though the origin was same for all the genotypes. OPC11 primer generated the smallest (150 bp) DNA fragment in genotype A, while in the case of genotype ‘B’, the largest (2500 bp) fragment was obtained in OPB11 primer. In conclusion, the information on polymorphism using RAPD in Clitoria genotypes is useful in the assessment of genetic diversity, genetic relationships and phylogenetic analysis.

Key words: Clitoria ternatea, Clitoria biflora, RAPD markers, polymorphism, genetic diversity.