Promotor Anchored - RAPD Analysis of Foxtail Millet (Setaria italica L.) Accessions Selected For High Iron and Zinc Content

Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) is nutri-cereal crop having it is rich in β-carotene, vitamin B-complex and micronutrients like minerals. In the present research, we have studied biochemical properties and molecular profiling to identify the core set of foxtail millet (Setaria italic L.) accessions for high Iron (Fe) and Zinc (Zn) content. Total seventy-nine accessions and selected mutants variety PS4 of foxtail millet were used. The biochemical investigation revealed that accessions M2-106, IC120407, M3-61/HB-13, and IC120255 consist of high iron and zinc content. The genetic variability among the genotypes was revealed by 28 Promoter Anchored Amplified Polymorphic (PAAP-RAPD) primers of which OPE9+GC1, OPE9+CA1, UBC001+CA1, UBC001+TA1, UBC693+G1 showed 100% polymorphism, whereas UBC693+GC1 and OPE7+G1 showed 88% and 80% polymorphism, respectively, with an average of 45.95 % polymorphism. Total alleles per locus were 3.31, whereas, the average number of monomorphic and polymorphic alleles were 1.72 and 1.56, respectively. The extent of polymorphic information content (PIC) of PAAP-RAPD loci ranged from 0.5 to 0.87 with an average value of 0.41. For PAAP-RAPD, the maximum PIC value was observed in marker UBC693+GC1 (0.87 %) and the minimum were OPE5+CA1 and OPE9+CA1 (0.5 %). Molecular characterizations result showing highest similarity (0.932) between accessions Shrilakshmi and Prasad, whereas, the lowest similarity coefficient was observed between IC120255 and M3-75/AM-1 (0.697) with PS4.UPGMA dendrogram grouped the foxtail millet accessions in five clusters which marked high diversity in M3-61/HB-13 and M3-75/AM-1. It implies that PAAP-RAPD markers are significantly screened in the foxtail millet accessions and have enumerated high genetic diversity.