Abstract

CHAVES-BEDOYA, Giovanni; PULIDO, Mauricio; SANCHEZ-BETANCOURT, Erika  and  NUNEZ, Víctor. RAPD markers for sex identification in papaya (Carica papaya L.) in Colombia. Agron. colomb. [online]. 2009, vol.27, n.2, pp.145-149. ISSN 0120-9965.

Sex definition in papaya is considered an intriguing system, due to the fact that the plant presents three different sexes (male, female and hermaphrodite), which are determined on a multiallelic locus. Moreover, the plant does not have morphologically differentiated sexual chromosomes. Provided that molecular markers can be associated to traits of interest, in the present study they were applied to rapid sex identification in seedlings of Colombian papaya genotypes. With the aim of finding such markers, an RAPD technique (Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA) was applied. The study allowed identifying three polymorphic RAPD markers apt for differentiating the sexes in papaya. Two of them are specific for male and hermaphrodite plants, and one for female plants. These novel molecular markers will be valuable for sex determination in Colombian genotypes of papaya.

Keywords : Carica papaya; dioecious plants; sexual determination.

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