Authors: Shiqiang Liu Liang Xu Zhiqi Jia Yong Xu Qing Yang Zhangjun Fei Xiangyang Lu Huiming Chen Sanwen Huang
Publish Date: 2008/07/16
Volume: 117, Issue: 6, Pages: 927-933
Abstract
Cucumber Cucumis sativus L has served as the model system for sex expression in flowering plants and its sex type is predominantly controlled by two genetic loci F and M Ethylene is the major plant hormone that regulates sex expression in cucumber The current model predicts that ethylene serves as both a promoter of femaleness via the F locus and an inhibitor of the male sex via the M locus In support of this model genetic genomic and transcript analyses indicate that the F gene encodes a key enzyme in ethylene biosynthesis In this study we discovered that the M locus cosegregates with an ETHYLENEINSENSITIVE3 EIN3like genomic sequence in an F2 population of 96 individuals This genetic association agrees with the prediction that the M locus is involved in ethylene signaling thus providing another line of evidence in favor of the model In addition we generated an amplified fragment length polymorphism AFLP® map of the M locus which was delimited into a genetic interval of 25 cM The genetic association and the local map will assist the molecular isolation of the M gene using the combination of positional cloning and candidate gene approachThe experiment was carried out in the SinoDutch Joint Lab of Horticultural Genomics Technology and the Opening Lab of Vegetable Genetics and Physiology of Ministry of Agriculture both located in the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences We thank Dr J E Staub Agricultural Research Service U S Department of Agriculture Horticulture Department University of Wisconsin Madison for providing the cucumber materials and Dr Zhonghua Zhang of our lab for bioinformatics analysis This work was supported by grants from Ministry of Agriculture “948” Program 2008Z42 and Ministry of Science and Technology 2006DFA32140 to S H
Keywords: