Nineteen accessions of Chenopodium, comprising of 11 accessions of C. quinoa and 8 accessions of C. album were evaluated. Morphological variations were observed in leaf colour, shape and margins, type of pollen grains, seed colour, seed coat texture and morphology of seed edges amongst the accessions. SDS-PAGE profiling of soluble seed proteins revealed 22 bands ranging in molecular mass from 26-68 kDa. While 6 protein bands were monomorphic, 16 protein bands were polymorphic. One band representing protein with molecular mass of 35.76 kDa was detected only in the accession IC-341704 of C. album. Five exotic accessions viz. EC-507744, EC-507742, EC-507738, EC-5077391 and EC-507741, belonging to C. quinoa, showed the presence of a duplex of 33.55 and 29.59 kDa bands which was not detected in any other accession. The dendrogram generated from the scoring profiles of SDS-PAGE of soluble seed proteins segregated the accession as per their taxonomic classification into C. quinoa and C. album. While the accessions belonging to C. album showed a high degree of morplogical heterogeneity the SDS-PAGE profiles of seed proteins indicated low level of variations within the accessions of each species. Further the accessions IC-411824 and IC-411825 showed more closeness with C. quinoa than C. album.
Key words: Chenopodium quinoa, C. album, SDS-PAGE, soluble seed protein
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