PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL MUTAGENESIS IN CATHARANTHUS ROSEUS PLANT USING SCOT MARKERS

The current study comprising molecular identification of the mutagenic effects of gamma rays and sodium azide on Catharanthus roseus using scot markers took place at the Department of Biology, University of Kufa, Iraq. The seeds of two cultivars, i.e., ‘victory carmine’ and a local variety (pink variety) of Catharanthus roseus L (carmine var.) received irradiation with two doses of gamma rays (50 Gray and 75 Gray). Afterward, these got soaked in sodium azide with four concentrations (0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%, and 0.8%) to induce the genetic variation in the cultivar. The non-treated seeds served as control treatments for comparison with treated ones. Accomplishing irradiation was at an average of 18 Gy/h using Cobalt-60. The effects of gamma rays and sodium azide treatments’ evaluation were through 10 start codon targeted (SCoT) DNA markers. The higher number of distinctive fingerprints was three produced by primers SCoT-26, while primer SCoT-60 provided a distinct fingerprint for only one treatment. However, primer SCoT-40 failed to recognize any treatment with a distinctive fingerprint. The highest molecular size (2488 bp) came from primer SCoT-54, whereas the lower molecular size (143 bp) resulted in primer SCoT-12. Primer SCoT-33 provided the highest value for chief and unique bands, reaching 33 and 18, respectively. The highest number of amplified bands was 77 bands in primer SCoT-54. Primer SCoT-60 produced the highest value for monomorphic bands, primer SCoT-12 gave the highest value for polymorphic bands, polymorphism, and discriminatory (15, 68.18, and 20.83, respectively), and primer SCoT-9 produced the highest value for efficiency.