RAPD based assessment of genetic diversity of Butea monosperma from different agro-ecological regions of India

Abstract

Butea monosperma (Lam.) Taub. (English. Flame of the forest) belonging to the family Fabaceae, is an anthropogenic tree of several castes and also a very useful tree for both local people and pharmaceutical industry. This valuable tree needs attention for the characterization of its genetic diversity, protection and cultivation. The present work describes randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis to assess the genetic divergence among 16 Butea accessions collected from four agro-ecological regions of India (nine agro-climatic sub zones), coverring five states (Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka). Out of the 30 ten mer random primers used for studying genetic divergence, 12 were polymorphic, generating a total of 145 amplification products with an average of 12 products per polymorphic primer and an estimated mean gene diversity of 0.43. Genetic relationships among accessions were evaluated by generating a similarity matrix based on Jaccard’s coefficient ranging from 0.53 to 0.79. The phenetic dendrogram generated by UPGMA analysis grouped accessions into four clusters. Primer 5, 12 and 16 were found most informative based on their resolving power and their potential to differentiate all the accessions. The degree of genetic variation detected among the 16 accessions with RAPD analysis suggested that RAPD could be used for studying genetic diversity in Butea. The study also demonstrated that Butea germplasm collected from different agro-ecological regions showed no isolation based on sub-climatic zones as the accessions collected from different sub-climatic zones grouped together in the genetic tree.