PLANT CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

A heterogeneous collection of 154 indigenous (traditional) rice lines were explored to select a set of aromatic quality rice still available in South Bengal, a premier rice growing region of eastern India. Of the 154 lines only 35 showed presence of aroma in a sensory test using 1.7% KOH. The subset of 35 lines were further screened for a number of important quality traits like grain and kernel dimension, amylose content, alkali spreading value and cooked kernel elongation. The selected quality traits showed significant positive correlation among the selected aromatic genotypes in statistical analysis. Two SSR loci (RM223 and RM547) tightly linked with fgr locus on rice chromosome 8 were further used for detailed genotyping of the subset of rice lines. The population genetics of the subset of 35 rice lines for the two SSR loci were studied using POPGENE. The interrelation among the investigated lines was calculated using R with respective packages (cluster and dist). Final confirmation of the selected lines was done through PCR amplification with two primer pairs designed for BADH gene associated with 2-Acetyl-1-Pyrroline biosynthesis, a potent biochemical compound for aroma in rice. All the aromatic lines showed an allelic size of about 194 bp for this genetic loci. The information generated from this investigation can be used for the utilization of these aromatic rice lines in molecular breeding programme.