Abstract
One hundred and sixty Pakistani Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare accessions were analyzed for genetic diversity on the basis of hordein, seed storage proteins. In total we have analyzed 7 Hor-1, 12 Hor-2 and 5 Hor-3 alleles for three hordein loci in barley accessions on SDS-PAGE. Out of 24 polymorphic alleles, three rare alleles (Hor 3.1, Hor 2.1, Hor 1.1) were detected. Abundant genetic variability was observed in Pakistani barley accessions for hordein loci. Genetic similarities calculated for all pair wise comparisons of H. vulgare accessions were used to form 83 banding patterns that represent the core collections of Pakistan, which included 50 unique patterns. Multivariate analysis conducted to generate similarity matrix using Jaccard's coefficient (Jaccard, 1908) to estimate relatedness and divergence among 160 accessions ranged from 0.11 to 1.00, representing high level of genetic variability. Clustering was carried out to determine genetic diversity among the core collections that clustered them into three major clusters. In this study genetic diversity for cultivated barley belonging to different regions of Pakistan were in the order of Punjab> Balochistan> Northern Area> Sindh> A.J.K> N.W.F.P.