2.4. RAPD analysis of the isolates
Twenty RAPD primers of OPC decamer series (OPC1–
OPC20) were screened to obtain informative and reproducible
RAPD primers for the 30 isolates of tested endophytes. Ampli-
fication reaction was carried out in a total volume of 25 ll
reaction mixtures containing 1 ll DNA (23–25 ng), 10 buffer
(2.5 ll), 25 mM Mgcl2 (2.5 ll), 10 mM dNTPs (0.5 ll), 10 pm/
ll RAPD primer (2.5 ll) and 1 lM Taq DNA polymerase
(Fermentas, Lithuania). The conditions for Polymerase Chain
Reaction for RAPD amplification was 95 C for 5 min, 45
cycles of 95 C for 1 min, 36 C for 1 min, 72 C for 2 min
and final 72 C for 8 min. The amplified products were separated
in 1.5% agarose gel at constant 80 V in 1 TAE buffer.
A binary matrix was generated for all the bands present in each
strain, using ‘1’ for the presence of an amplicon, and ‘0’ for its
absence. The computer program numerical taxonomy and
multivariate analysis system NTSYS-PC (version 170) was
used to analyze the binary matrix of all the 30 isolates of the
tested endophytes. Jaccard Similarity Coefficient was clustered
and unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic average
(UPGMA) was selected to generate a dendogram using the
SAHN clustering program.
3.