Development of Specific-Molecular Marker for Sex Determination among Papaya Cultivars Grown in Thailand

Abstract

Papaya (Carica papaya L.) is the one of important economical fruit plants in Thailand. Its sex-type determination in an early seedling stage is extremely significant for commercial production because it sufficiently accelerates the productive hermaphrodite plants in orchard. The aim of this research was to develop specific-molecular marker for sex determination among five different papaya cultivars (Holland, Khaek-Dam, Koko, Khak-Nuan, and Si-Sa-Ket), grown in Thailand. The result revealed that the SCAR-W11F and SCAR-W11F markers were very useful for detecting male and hermaphrodite of five studied papaya cultivars, by giving the accurate PCR product approximately 830bp length in male and hermaphrodite but not in female. Furthermore, the new designed marker (PH2-F and PH1-R), were successfully useful to determine only in hermaphrodite of all validated papaya cultivars, by generating the PCR product (approximately 101bp length). These indicated that both molecular markers were greatly beneficial and valuable to identify the sex types of papaya plants at an early seedling stage.