Abstract

Studies were undertaken to identify genetic relationship in six different populations of Acorus calamus L. through randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. A total of 574 DNA fragments ranging from 281 to 1353 bp were amplified using 10 selected primers. The number of amplification products produced by a primer ranged from as low as six to a maximum of 13, with an average of nine bands per primer. The cluster analysis revealed three major clusters; the first cluster contained sample collected from Lucknow and Paonta Uttaralkand, India. The second cluster had single sample from Bangalore India and the third cluster contained sample collected from Solan, Nauni and Hissar, India. The similarity coefficient value ranged from 0.97 to 0.88. The highest similarity coefficient (0.97) was detected between samples collected from Nauni and Hissar as well as between Solan and Hissar and the lowest (0.88) was detected between the pairs Lucknow and Bangalore, Lucknow and Solan, Bangalore and Solan. The level of polymorphism in our study was very low which showed that samples used for analysis would have close relationship.

Key words: Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), similarity coefficient, polymorphism, Acorus calamus, primer.