We have developed molecular markers tightly linked to Sex1, the gene that determines plant sex in papaya ( Carica papaya L.). Three RAPD products have been cloned and a portion of their DNA sequenced. Based on these sequences SCAR primers were synthesized. SCAR T12 and SCAR W11 produce products in hermaphrodite and male plants and only rarely in females. SCAR T1 produces a product in all papayas regardless of plant sex. SCAR T12 and SCAR W11 showed no recombination in a population of 182 F2 plants from a 'SunUp' by 'Kapoho' cross. Based on these results a PCR-based technique for rapidly and accurately determining the sex of papaya plants was developed using either W11 or T12 to detect the hermaphrodite or male allele and T1, which amplifies a product regardless of sex type, as a positive control. The sexing technique, using SCAR T12 and SCAR T1 as a positive control, was used to correctly predict hermaphrodite papaya plants in a population of seedlings with an overall accuracy of 99.2%.

The grape is an important horticultural crop that is grown worldwide. Breeding a new grape cultivar by conventional means normally will take several generations of backcross, at least 15 years. The efficiency and speed of selection can be accelerated if genetic markers are available for early screening. This project is designed to generate RAPD markers linked to viticulturally important traits, including seedlessness and pistillate genes. A F1 population with 64 progenies of V. vinifera was used for the RAPD analysis. Bulked Segregant Analysis (BSA) method was used for RAPD primer screening. Three-hundred primers were screened between the two pairs of pooled DNA samples, seeded and seedlessness, pistillate and perfect flowers. At least 10 primers produced one polymorphism each between the pools. Further analysis revealed that one of these RAPDs cosegregated tightly with the seedlessness trait, while the others either had loose linkage or no linkage to the traits. To make the RAPD marker useful for breeding selection, an attempt was made to convert it into SCAR marker. The results demonstrated that the RAPD marker may be useful for grape breeding and interpreting inheritance of a particular trait in grapes.