Biochemical and RAPD molecular markers for establishing distinctiveness of basmati rice (<i style="">Oryza sativa</i> L.) varieties as additional descriptors for plant variety protection

Abstract

India has enacted a <i style="">sui generis</i> legislation as Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act 2001 (PPV&FR) for protection of plant varieties by registration. Under PPV&FR Act DUS (distinctiveness, uniformity, stability) testing procedure will be performed with morphological descriptors. Use of biochemical and molecular markers in DUS testing for establishing distinctiveness as a complement to morphological descriptors has been attempted in this study. Eighteen traditional and improved basmati rice (<i style="">Oryza sativa</i> L.) varieties were studied for morphological descriptors, total soluble proteins and isozymes as biochemical and RAPD molecular markers for determining distinctive features. SDS-PAGE for total soluble proteins and isozyme analysis revealed moderate and moderate to high degree of polymorphism, respectively. UPGMA analysis of combined isozyme data of different enzymes could discriminate all varieties except Hansraj from KLS 24. A high degree of polymorphism (76.5%) was detected among the 18 basmati rice varieties through 12 random primers used for RAPD marker analysis. UPGMA cluster analysis of RAPD data could distinguish all the 18 varieties. It can be concluded that in situations where the morpho-physiological DUS descriptors are not able to establish distinctiveness of a variety then biochemical and molecular markers may be used as additional or complement descriptors for resolving distinctiveness of basmati rice varieties.