Inheritance of seed protein expression in mungbean

Abstract

Molecular markers have emerged as a potential tool for studies on genome organization and its improvement. As compared to the ONA markers, detection of the seed protein markers involves simple and less expensive procedures. Polymorphism in electrophoretic banding patterns of seed proteins has effectively been employed to elucidate evolution, phylogenetic relationship and genetic variation in several crop plants. Simple Mendelian segregation is a prerequisite for using a polymorphic protein as marker. Literature reveals seed protein expression to be under monogenic control with codominance of alleles for proteins with diverse molecular weight forms and complete dominance of presence over absence. In mungbean, (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczck), however, no information on inheritance of expression of seed proteins is available. Mungbean is an extensively grown pulse crop in India and other South East Asian countries. It contains about 23% seed proteins [1] and therefore, could be an ideal candidate for studies on genetics of electrophoretic banding patterns.