MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF REGIONAL

Systematic characterizations and evaluation of plant genetic resources are prerequisites for the efficient use of material through conventional methods. Pakistan is an agro-based country and has a variety of important crops which includes sorghum. Traditionally, the data on agronomic, morphological and physiological plant traits are used to estimate the genetic diversity. But now biochemical and molecular markers have received much attention in recent years for genetic diversity studies. A study was conducted to assess the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship among different sorghum varieties by Genome DNA fingerprinting as revealed by Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. A total of 10 sorghum varieties were evaluated using RAPD. DNA was extracted from leaves, quantified and subjected to PCR analysis by using different primers. PCR products will be evaluated using 1.5 % agarose gel electrophoresis. Data analysis was done using Gel compare ІІ software program. Results show the appreciable amount of genetic diversity among the sorghum varieties. Out of the 95 amplification products scored, 75 bands (78.94%) were found to be polymorphic. The pairwise similarity values shows that variety RARI-S3 and RARI-S-4 (both from Chakwal) are showing closest relationship with highest similarity value i.e., 95.6 % while variety YSS-9 and 84G01 (Bonus) show distant relationship with similarity value 67.8%. In this experiment RAPD proved to be a reliable, rapid and practical technique of revealing relationship among sorghum varieties