Abstract

Genomic diversity among fifty accessions of Berberis lycium Royle complex was studied, using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. Out of 80 RAPD primers, 28 were polymorphic and showed reproducible results. Total of 11,683 amplicon generated 50 accessions of B. lycium complex with 28 primers. 332 amplification products scored, 284 (85%) were polymorphic and 48 monomorphic. Maximum numbers of 21 amplification products were obtained with primers OPAP-3 and 20 products with OPB-4. Average number of 11.5 bands obtained per primer and amplificon size ranged from 100 to 4, 500 bp and after study, no primer gave single band among all accessions. Polymorphic Information Contents (PIC) ranged from 0.013 to 0.52 with an average of 0.12. Dendrogram grouped all the accessions into five major groups. Principle Component Analysis (PCA) was also supporting result obtained by dendogram. Present study is not supporting previous taxonomic classification of B.lycium Royle complex (based on morphological characters) but showed large diversity among them.

Key words: Berberis lycium Royle complex, inter-varietal-relationship, RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA), principle component analysis.