Biochemical Evaluation and Molecular Characterization of Garden Pea (Pisum sativum L.) Genotypes

Fifteen pea genotypes/varieties were analyzed to evaluate biochemical constituents and to identify the extent of diversity by molecular characterization. The range of variation for biochemical constituents varied significantly viz. moisture(67.52–81.06 per cent), crude protein(18.00–24.46 per cent), crude fat (1.23–3.55 per cent), crude fibre (7.86–13.45 per cent), carbohydrate (55.21–63.17 per cent), ash (1.95–3.63 per cent), sodium (35.01–99.80 mg/100g), potassium (234.98–385.52 mg/100g), ascorbic acid (3.01–6.35mg/100g), total carotenoids (9.37–14.20 mg/100g) and total chlorophyll (2.30–4.2mg/100g) content. The cumulative varietal grading showed that genotypes DPP-168, 08/PMVAR/1 and VL-8 occupied first, second and third rank in order of excellence. SDS-PAGE and RAPD analysis were also carried out for genetic diversity. Seed protein profiling by SDS-PAGE analysis of collected genotypes revealed a total of 10 protein bands. Dendrogram based on electrophoretic data using UPGMA divided the genotypes in 2 major clusters. The overall similarity coefficient ranged from 0.11 to 1.00. For DNA fingerprinting by RAPD, a total of 40 primers were tried to obtain reproducible bands, out of which only 12 primers resulted into reproducible bands. A total of 60 highly reproducible bands were obtained out of which 56 were polymorphic. The polymorphism ranged from 87.5 to 100 per cent. Dendrogram generated using UPGMA separated 15 genotypes into 2 major clusters with 25 to 82 per cent similarity. The above results revealed high genetic diversity in some of selected genotypes. Therefore, the selected genotypes possessed variability both in genetic and biochemical attributes which can be exploited for further improvement of this crop.