Indian Journal of Plant Genetic Resources

Preliminary biochemical study was carried out to identify 14 soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] varieties on the basis of electrophoregrams of soluble seed proteins by Discontinuous Polyacrylamide Slab Gel Electrophoresis method. Genetic diversity among soybean varieties was determined on the basis of their evolutionary, morphological and biochemical markers. Relationship was also established between varietal characters based on aforesaid parameters. In the electrophoretic study clear band patterns were observed for all 14 varieties. All type of protein band intensity i.e. low, medium and high were observed in various soybean varieties. However, in some varieties the quantitatively similar number of total protein bands were noted, but differences in presence and/or absence of particular band at particular position and their Rm values as well as different protein band intensity for common bands showed diverse nature of these varieties to each other. Results revealed that 12 varieties could easily be identified from each other as they showed their own specific characters. The variety PK 327 and JS 79–81 showed genetic diversity for their evolutionary and morphological markers, but at biochemical level they depicted identical protein banding patterns having variation only in band intensity. Such a set of varieties could possibly be discriminated by performing Slab Gel Electrophoresis under denaturing conditions or by PCR-based DNA fingerprinting. These findings could open a scope for further research in the specific area of “Varietal identification”. Therefore it is concluded that all 14 soybean varieties studied were genetically diverse and could be used in breeding programme. Hence, the DPAGE technique can be effectively used for varietal identification which is found to be quick, reliable, economical, avoiding field studies.