జర్నల్ ఆఫ్ ప్లాంట్ పాథాలజీ & మైక్రోబయాలజీ

నైరూప్య

Genetic and Pathogenic Variability of Ascochyta rabiei Isolates from Pakistan and Syria as Detected by Universal Rice Primers

Hina Ali, Syed Sarwar Alam and Nayyer Iqbal

Ascochyta rabiei is the casual agent of blight disease of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). The study was aimed to assess the genetic diversity of highly aggressive Ascochyta rabiei (AR) isolates (pathotypes III and IV) from Syria and its comparison with highly aggressive isolates from Pakistan. AR isolates were characterized for pathogenicity assay and genetic variability. Previously genetic variability of AR isolates have been checked with RAPD and SSR markers, here we are reporting for the first time diversity using ten Universal rice primers (URP) derived from the repeat sequence of rice genome. URP proved very useful for the characterization of isolates and clearly differentiated Syrian pathotypes from Pakistani ones. URP can be helpful in studying the population variability from AR pathotypes worldwide.