Geographical Survey and Genetic Variation Studies of Few Chilly Varieties Collected from Different Regions of Karnataka, India

Chillies are widely used throughout the world in the form of spice and are also used in making beverages and medicines. They are rich in vitamins, especially in vitamin A and C. Chillies contain lots of minerals like potassium, magnesium, and iron. They have been employed for pain relief as they are known to inhibit pain messengers and hence their extracts are used to alleviate the pain of arthritis, headaches, burns, and neuralgia. It is also claimed that they have the power to boost the immune system and lower cholesterol. They are also helpful in getting rid of gut parasites. In this regard we attempted to do a geographical survey about the chilly varieties and chilly growing states in India. We collected the local varieties of chillies available in Karnataka and performed genetic variation studies to understand their relationship at the genetic level. PCR analysis was done using the selected random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) marker to identify the polymorphic loci between the genotypes taken. DNA Barcoding was done to validate the species using basic local alignment search tool (BLAST) and Clustal Omega, further dendrogram was constructed which guide the joining linkage rule of unweighted pair group average (UPGMA) and the genetic distance to compute from matrix table. The results obtained highlight the relationship between species of Capsicum annum, Capsicum frutescens which are closely related followed by Capsicum pubescens and Capsicum baccatum providing knowledge about its application in genetics and plant breeding in developing efficient hybrid variety.