Molecular Identification of Drought Stress Tolerance Gene Dehydration Responsive Gene (DRG) in selected Cowpea Genotypes (Vigna unguiculata (L) WALP)
Cowpea is considered a food legume that supply humans and animals with high level of protein, carbohydrate, micro and macronutrients composition. The choice of variety must be based on certain character example maturity period, yield potential and drought tolerance. The experiment was carried out at Department of Plant Biology Screen House, located at old campus, latitude 11º 581 North and longitude 8º 301 East and Biotechnology Laboratory in Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA), Bayero University Kano. Eight (8) Cowpea varieties comprising four (4) tolerant and four (4) susceptible were screened for identification of Cowpea Dehydration Responsive Gene (CDRG) using molecular technique. DNA was extracted using modified CTAB method by Doyle et al 1987, and mRNA of CDRG was identified from NCBI as 26B01 for mapping, PCR was conducted using specific primer. The gene were identified in all the eight (8) selected tolerant and susceptible varieties at same region within 100 base pair. This indicated the presence of Cowpea Responsive to Dehydration Gene in both the Susceptible and tolerant varieties, but band intensity and clarity differs, where the tolerant varieties indicated bright PCR band while susceptible lines shows faded PCR band, this may be as a result of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) that exist between the CDRG gene of tolerant and susceptible varieties which is probably the reason for phenotypic difference in tolerance character.