Development of molecular method for sex identification in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) plantlets using novel sex-linked microsatellite markers

Abstract

Microsatellite markers containing simple sequence repeats (SSRs) are a valuable tool for genetic analysis. Date palm is a dioecious and slow flowering and is very difficult to identify the gender of the trees until it reaches the reproductive age (5–10 years). A total of 12 microsatellite primers were used with 30 date palm samples, 14 parents (8 male + 6 females) and 16 progeny (developed from parents breeding) which showed that microsatellites were highly polymorphic, having a great number of alleles. A total of 124 alleles were characterized in 12 SSR loci. On average, there are 9.08 alleles per locus, with a range from 5 to 16 alleles, for primers mpdCIR15 and mpdCIR57, respectively. These primers produced 15 polymorphic loci specifically in male date palm samples and the seedlings harboring the unique fragments were further characterized as male plants. Increasingly, 38.46 % of these loci were scored as homozygous alleles while 61.53 % heterozygous allelic loci were determined. Primer mpdCIR48 produced a specific locus (250/250) in all male samples whereas the same locus was absent in female samples. Similarly, a locus of 300/310 bp reoccurred in 5 date palm male samples using marker DP-168 which indicated that these are the promising candidate marker to detect the sex in date palm seedlings at early stage. The data resulted from combination of 12 primers enabled the 16 seedling samples progeny (developed from parents breeding) of date palm cultivars to divide into two groups i.e., male and female regarding their sex expression comparative to the parents (male + female) using the principle coordinate analysis.

Effect of the seedling age and Compost to the growth of Palm Date Lulu (Phoenix Dactylifera L.) Nursery and Investigation of Female Seedling on Soil of Sub-Optimal Land

“…sharp point tips, curve and rough seeds in Figure 9 (Zango et al, 2016). This inventory was important because Elmer & Mattat (2012) could not investigate 117 female dates genetically and (Maryam 2016) postulated that we had to wait up to 5 years in order to find out a female date or when it produced fruits. This result showed that seedling date grew coiled roots at the 15 days old and produced circle leaf at the age of 30 days, so it did not need to wait until the first leaf emerged to find out that was a female date and this can safe time, energy and space for nursery.…”

Validation of RAPD and ISSR Markers Used for Sex Determination in Date Palm Grown under Sudan Conditions

“…In contrast [35] amplified a band with RDA21 of size 900 bp. There is a huge difference in date palm cultivars grown under environmental conditions of Sudan [2]. Nevertheless each single primer from the four valid primers succeeded to amplify male specific fragments in all genotypes under study.…”

“…Introduction  Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L) is diploid (2n=36), monocotyledonous plant [1], considers an important member of the family Arecaceae which contains 200 genera and 500 species [2]. It is native to North Africa and the Middle East and now distributed in Australia, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Southern Africa, South America, and the United States [3].…”

Towards sex identification of Asian Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelliferL.) by DNA fingerprinting, suppression subtractive hybridization andde novotranscriptome sequencing

“…Sex identification of date palm was subjected to a debate as newly developed sex-linked markers via DNA fingerprinting often failed when tested in other varieties or populations (Rania & Younis, 2008; Al-Mahmoud et al, 2012; Elmeer & Mattat, 2012; Dhawan et al, 2013; Maryam et al, 2016). Indeed, varieties of date palm germplasm and geographical populations were included as much when developing those markers, but the power of sex identification was limited by the variation of DNA sequences at the sex loci and, at that time, an unclear sex determination system in date palm.…”