Abstract

COMPARATIVE GENETIC ANALYSIS AMONG GENERA CYMBOPOGON AND VETIVERIA BY RAPD, SOUTHERN HYBRIDIZATION AND SEQUENCING

Nirupama Lal* and Sudhir K. Awasthi

Abstract

Two of the most important genera of family ‘Poaceae’ namely Cymbopogon and Vetiveria were investigated in this study with the objective to differentiate the species, determining the diversity and assessing the synteny among them. For this purpose, RAPD, southern hybridization and sequence analysis were used as tools. Combinely, after assessing all the parameter, a tentative pattern of evolution for different accessions of Cymbopogon and Vetiveria zizanioides was deduced in which all of the species were predicted to be evolved from a single ancestor through C. confertiflorus (CCo01) or C. nardus (L.) Rendle var. confertiflorus (CN01) type of genome. All species of Cymbopogon studied were having the basic chromosome number X=10. In the synteny study, Vetiveria types of grasses were analyzed to be derived from wild relatives of Cymbopogon type of genome. Vetiveria was further thought to be of recent origin in its development compared to Cymbopogon. The presence of similar sequence RAPD fragments in these two types of genomes were further confirmed through southern hybridization and sequencing.

Keywords: Cymbopogon; Vetiveria; Genetic diversity; RAPD; Molecular markers; Southern hybridization; Sequencing; Synteny.