Vol. 12, Issue 3 (2023)

Author(s):
Madhu Choudhary and K Ram Krishna

Abstract:
The study was carried out on 38 mutants derived from EMS (0.5%) mutagenesis of two cowpea varieties RC-19 and RC-101 for determine the variation in their profile of seed storage protein subunits through sodium dodecyl sulphate - polyacryl amide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). The protein bands of region I and II were monomorphic and intensely stained and identified to have a MW between 97.4 kD to 43 kD. Only certain bands of region III and IV were polymorphic. The band of region V was monomorphic. The binary data generated from the polymorphic bands over the genotypes were used to compute Jaccard’s similarity coefficients using NTSYS-pc software. The similarity matrix thus prepared was used to construct a dendrogram by UPGMA. The dendrogram distributed the 40 genotypes in 11 clusters. About 50% mutants were in one cluster and their parents in another clusters. One of the mutants (number 30) was placed in a unique cluster. Clustering seemed to be independent of the seed attributes studied. The protein content of the mutants was invariably reduced as compared to their parents and ranged from 21-30.3%. It was concluded that results of the studies may be useful in selection of mutants for hybridization programme for possible improvement of the quality of seed storage proteins in cowpea.