GENOME ANALYSIS OF AMARANTHS - DETERMINATION OF INTERSPECIES AND INTRASPECIES VARIATIONS

Amaranths are an important group of plants and include grain, vegetabl e and ornamental types. Despite the economic importance of the amarant hs, there is very little information available about the extent and na ture of genetic diversity present in the genus Amaranthus at molecular level. We now report the randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) pr ofiles of different species of Amaranthus as well as different accessi ons of the species. These RAPD analyses base been carried out using 65 arbitrary sequence decamer primers. From the RAPD data, an UPGMA dend rogram illustrating the inter-as well as intra-species relationships h as been computed. The putative hybrid origin of A. dubious from A. hyb ridus and A. spinosus is also ruled out by the RAPD data. The trends o f species relationships amongst the amaranths determined by RAPDs is c onsistent with their cytogenetic and evolutionary relationships that h ave already been determined.