Protein landmarks for diversity assessment in wheat genotypes

Grain proteins from 20 Indian wheat genotypes were evaluated for diversity assessment based seed storage protein profiling on sodium dodecylsulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Genetic diversity was evaluated using Nei’s index, Shannon index and Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) cluster analysis by constructing dendrogram of fractions of proteins, which were used for the calculation of similarity coefficients between these varieties. Diversity analysis attributes exhibited the importance of seed storage as a marker system. The similarity ranged from 32.14% to as high as 100% between genotypes. Adoption of this technology would be useful to plant protection regulatory systems, especially for plant variety identification and registration of new plant varieties, breeding programs and protection purposes. Keywords: Sodium dodecylsulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), genetic diversity, population diversity index, coefficient of similarity. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(29), pp. 4640-4647