Biochemical and cytological analysis of five cultivars of Cicer (chickpea)

During the present study, protein estimation and protein profiling of five cultivars of Cicer namely Dhawal, ujjwal, Shubhra, DCP-92-3 and IPC-04-20 have been carried out. The protein content on per gram fresh weight basis was found highest in the Dhawal measuring 35.2± 3.83 mg followed by DCP-92- 3 and lowest was found in the IPC-04-20 cultivar. The protein profiling of seed proteins using sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) revealed a high polymorphism between the five cultivars. The total number of polypeptide bands recorded was 36, the 4 bands were monomorphic and the rest32 were polymorphic with an average polymorphism of 88.88%. The Jacards similarity ranged from 0.25000 to 0.56000. The similarity index calculated was highest between Ujjwal and IPC-04-20 (37.5%) where as lowest was calculated between Shubhra and IPC-04-20 (22.22%) variety. The unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) clustering method revealed two major clusters in the dendrogram that is, cluster 1 and 2, comprising two varieties each. The Shubhra occupies a distinct place as depicted in the dendrogram. Moreover, cytological studies of the five cultivars by calculating the mitotic index were carried out. The mitotic index varied between 4.82 to 10.83% and was found highest in DCP-92-3 while as minimum value was observed in Ujjwal. Keywords: SDS-PAGE, UPGMA dendrogram, mitotic index, chickpea African Journal of Biotechnology , Vol 13(11), 1281-1286