Intra-specific genetic diversity and chemical profiling of different accessions of Clitoria ternatea L.

Abstract

Clitoria ternatea, commonly known as Shankhpushpi is an important drug of Ayurvedic medicine used for centuries as a memory enhancer, nootropic, antistress, anxiolytic, anticonvulsant, tranquilizing and sedative agent. In the present study, genetic variability and variation in Kaempferol, a chemical constituent in eleven accessions of C. ternatea collected from different regions of the country was assessed using 25 RAPD primers and HPLC analysis respectively. Only 7 primers amplified a total of 71 reproducible, clear and scorable bands of which 32 (45%) were polymorphic. The number of RAPD bands per primer was in the range of 7–14 with an average of 10 bands per primer. The genetic distance ranged from 0.02 to 0.28. A dendrogram based on UPGMA clustering method revealed two major clusters. Cluster 1 comprises of the accessions of North India while cluster 2 includes accessions of Central and South India. The Kaempferol content was 9.31–20.01mg/gdw, being highest in the accession of Kurukshetra (Haryana).