In contrast to the general notion of induction of a common set of heat shock polypeptides (HSP) in all cell types, heat shocked malpighian tubules (MT) ofDrosophila melanogaster larvae did not synthesize the common set of HSP induced in salivary glands or brain ganglia of larvae and in gonads (testis or ovary) of adult flies. Instead, heat shocked MT of late 3rd instar larvae and freshly eclosed adults synthesized a novel set of polypeptides (MT-specific HSP) with a major induced band at 58 kd. Surprisingly, the MT of older flies synthesized both the MT-specific as well as the common set of HSP in response to heat shock. Fusion genes with hsp70 or hsp26 promoter linked to the lac-Z (beta galactosidase) or to ADH (alcohol dehydrogenase) reporter gene were also not induced in larval MT but showed good induction in the MT of older flies. This unexpected finding raises intriguing issues regarding the nature of MT-specific HSP, their genes and the cell type dependent induction of the two sets of HSP.

A set of morphological traits and SSR markers were used to determine the genetic relationship among 12 elite thermosensitive genic male sterile (TGMS) lines developed at three different research institutions of India. Agro-morphological data recorded on 20 morphological traits revealed a wide base of genetic variation and a set of four morphological traits could distinguish most of the TGMS lines. Analysis with 30 SSR markers (20 EST-SSRs and 10 genomic SSRs) revealed 27 markers to be polymorphic, amplifying a total of 83 alleles. Each SSR marker amplified 2–6 alleles with an average of 2.76 alleles per marker and a PIC value varying from 0.54 to 0.96. Cluster analysis based on SSR and morphological data clearly differentiated the lines according to their source of origin. Correlation analysis between morphological and molecular data revealed a very poor association ($r = 0.06$), which could be attributed to selection pressure, genetic drift, sampling error and unknown relationship among related lines. The SSR markers discriminated the genotypes distinctly and quantified the genetic diversity precisely among the TGMS lines. Data on the yield per plant indicated that the genotypes grouping under a similar cluster showed same heterotic behaviour as compared to the genotypes from different clusters when crossed to similar pollinators.

Genetic diversity and identification of simple sequence repeat markers correlated with Fusarium wilt resistance was performed in a set of 36 elite cultivated pigeonpea genotypes differing in levels of resistance to Fusarium wilt. Twenty-four polymorphic sequence repeat markers were screened across these genotypes, and amplified a total of 59 alleles with an average high polymorphic information content value of 0.52. Cluster analysis, done by UPGMA and PCA, grouped the 36 pigeonpea genotypes into two main clusters according to their Fusarium wilt reaction. Based on the Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA and simple regression analysis, six simple sequence repeat markers were found to be significantly associated with Fusarium wilt resistance. The phenotypic variation explained by these markers ranged from 23.7 to 56.4%. The present study helps in finding out feasibility of prescreened SSR markers to be used in genetic diversity analysis and their potential association with disease resistance.

Assessment of genetic diversity in a crop germplasm is a vital part of plant breeding. DNA markers such as microsatellite or simple sequence repeat markers have been widely used to estimate the genetic diversity in rice. The present study was carried out to decipher the pattern of genetic diversity in terms of both phenotypic and genotypic variability, and to assess the efficiency of random vis-à-vis QTL linked/gene based simple sequence repeat markers in diversity estimation. A set of 88 rice accessions that included landraces, farmer’s varieties and popular Basmati lines were evaluated for agronomic traits and molecular diversity. The random set of SSR markers included 50 diversity panel markers developed under IRRI’s Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) and the trait-linked/gene based markers comprised of 50 SSR markers reportedly linked to yield and related components. For agronomic traits, significant variability was observed, ranging between the maximum for grains/panicle and the minimum for panicle length. The molecular diversity based grouping indicated that varieties from a common centre were genetically similar, with few exceptions. The trait-linked markers gave an average genetic dissimilarity of 0.45 as against that of 0.37 by random markers, along with an average polymorphic information constant value of 0.48 and 0.41 respectively. The correlation between the kinship matrix generated by trait-linked markers and the phenotype based distance matrix (0.29) was higher than that of random markers (0.19). This establishes the robustness of trait-linked markers over random markers in estimating genetic diversity of rice germplasm.