“…The flanking sequences of microsatellite loci of cultivated chickpea were found to be conserved in related annual species also (Choumane et al, 2000;Winter et al, 1999). The highest degree of conservation was observed in C. reticulatum (92 per cent) and C. echinospermum (83 per cent), whereas C. cuneatum showed the lowest (50 per cent) (Choumane et al, 2000), which further supports the crossability, isozyme and RAPD studies based grouping of species. C. anatolicum, a wild perennial relative of chickpea, showed 72 per cent conservation, which strongly supports the karyotypic studies (Ahmad, 1989).…”