Castor oil plant (Ricinus communis L.) having imperative medicinal and industrial significances. In the present study, we observed the biochemical and molecular characterization of castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) collected from different climatic zones of Pakistan (Lahore, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat and Kohat). The protein banding pattern of all 6 accessions was found same and no specific variation was noticed among the proteins of high molecular weight. However, small amount of variation was found in the number and intensity of low molecular weight. RAPD analysis of four primers (OPA-01, OPA-03, OPA- 09 and OPA-10) bares no variation in the genomic DNA banding patterns. Variations were found in the photosynthetic pigments attributes of the studied genotypes with high Chlorophyll a, b and total Carotenoids contents in plants of Kohat zone while lower level was found in plants of Swat zones. The present study revealed no variation among the genotypes by SDS-PAGE and RAPD. However it is useful to distinguish different form of castor with special reference to photosynthetic pigments grown in diverse climatic zone.
