Molecular profiling of silkworm biodiversity in India

Molecular tools opened a new vista to understand nature's bio-diversity and its relevance and the same approach was availed of to build-up the foundation work on the bio-diversity of silkworm spp in India. It is well established that the heritage of usage of silk for dress materials in India, Russia and China dates back to premedieval period and in spite of industrial development resulting to de-forestation, India still can claim as the owner of wide bio-diversity, espicially in northern India for silkworm spp. The molecular diversity was assessed among Antheraea mylitta, A. assama, A. pernyi, A. provlei, A. roylei and Philcosomia cynthia wiht 11 ISSR and 8 non-random primers on agarose gel. Nei's statistics as also Euclidean distance matrix was applied to find the genetic diversity between the six species, wherein the closest relationship between A. pernyi and A. proylei is established. With the help of POPGEN statistics, the average genetic heterozygosity appeared as 0.271 while Shanon's index is 0.4312 and alleles with segregation ratios of 3:1, 2:1, 1:1, 9:1 (generated with ISSR primers) were identified which can be utilized for future molecular breeding porgram. Further, and attempt was made to isolate a number of bands generated with 3 ISSR and six non-random primers, specific for different species and 22 such markers have been characterized through sequencing which will be made available through international public domain database.