Abstract

Four Egyptian and 21 foreign new lines of kabuli chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) were analyzed by using biochemical molecular markers to gain insight into the genetic diversity between accessions. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) was applied on the total soluble seed proteins by using sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and five isozyme systems to examine the storage and functional components, respectively. The storage protein markers alone were not enough to discriminate polymorphism among accessions of the different geographical origins. Isozyme data revealed 18 alleles belonging to 11 loci in the 5 systems. Unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) revealed that, the examined Egyptian accessions could strongly be originated from an ancestor that possessed little intraspecific diversity or lost, during domestication, much of its variation. 

Key words: Kabuli, biochemical markers, electrophoresis, isozyme.