Characterization of Agro-diversity by Seed Storage Protein Electrophoresis: Focus on Rice Germplasm from Uttarakhand Himalaya, India

The characteristics of 48 rice varieties from Uttarakhand Himalaya, India were detected by morphological and biochemical markers. The grains of the selected rice varieties varied in their morphological (grain length, grain width and grain weight) and biochemical characters (sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, SDS-PAGE). Based on the presence of 70, 65, 60, 57, 37–39, 22–23, 13 and 10 kDa protein bands in the 48 rice varieties, seven types of profiles were identified. An unweighted pair group average method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) dendrogram based on cluster analysis of genetic similarity of the protein bands showed two distinct groups with 1%–78% similarity coefficients. The presence of characteristic bands in selected varieties is a useful parameter for identification of rice germplasm.