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Development and characterization of a co-dominant molecular marker via sequence analysis of a genomic region containing the Female (F) locus in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)

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Abstract

Cucumber is a typical monoecious having separate male and female flowers on the same plant, and sex expression in cucumber is mainly determined by three major genes: F/f, M/m and A/a. Gynoecy plays an important role in cucumber hybrid breeding, and the use of gynoecious lines as maternal parents ensures high productivity. This study aimed to identify a co-dominant marker linked to Female (F) locus to distinguish homozygous and heterozygous gynoecious lines for efficient selection of gynoecy in cucumber breeding. Firstly, we analyzed a 50-kb genomic sequence of five gynoecious and five monoecious inbred lines to detect the polymorphism linked to F locus. A pair of specific primers, Cs-BCAT-F/Cs-BCAT-R, based on an In/Del polymorphism at 3′-UTR of branched-chain amino acid transaminase (BCAT) gene was designed to examine the polymorphism in gynoecious and monoecious parents, their F 1 hybrids and two F 2 segregating populations. The PCR fragments amplified with Cs-BCAT-F/Cs-BCAT-R co-segregated with sexual phenotypes in the F 2 populations, behaving as a co-dominant marker with two alleles: F (gynoecious) and f (monoecious). When we further verified the consistency of the co-dominant marker using additional 55 diverse inbred lines, it can explain ~90 % of accessions. Linkage analysis also showed that the gene which enhances the number of female flowers co-segregated with the co-dominant marker on the long arm of chromosome 6. This is the first report for the development of F locus-specific co-dominant marker which can distinguish perfectly homozygous and heterozygous gynoecious, and it could be used in marker-assisted selection in cucumber breeding.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Grants from Bio-industry Technology Development Program (111057-5) of iPET (Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Genomics Laboratory, Department of Plant Biotechnology, College of Life Sciences, Sejong University, 209 Neungdong-ro, Gwanjing-gu, Seoul, 143-747, Republic of Korea

    Khin Thanda Win, Chunying Zhang, Kihwan Song, Jeong Hwan Lee & Sanghyeob Lee

  2. Plant Engineering Research Institute, Sejong University, 209 Neungdong-ro, Gwanjing-gu, Seoul, 143-747, Republic of Korea

    Kihwan Song & Sanghyeob Lee

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  1. Khin Thanda Win
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  2. Chunying Zhang
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  3. Kihwan Song
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  5. Sanghyeob Lee
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Correspondence to Sanghyeob Lee.

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Win, K.T., Zhang, C., Song, K. et al. Development and characterization of a co-dominant molecular marker via sequence analysis of a genomic region containing the Female (F) locus in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). Mol Breeding 35, 229 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-015-0424-0

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