Sex determination by PCR in <i>Carica papaya </i>L. plants obtained via somatic embryogenesis

Abstract

For the molecular identification of the sex of papaya plants (Carica papaya L.) have been used in field crop plants, however it has not been determined in vitro plants. The objective of this research was to identify hermaphrodite papaya plants var. `Maradol Red' obtained via somatic embryogenesis from immature zygotic embryos. For this, a multiplex PCR enables simultaneous amplification of two fragments (1300 and 800 bp) for hermaphrodite and one fragment (1300 bp) to female plants was used. DNA was extracted from leaves of in vitro plants by alkaline lysis with NaOH. PCR amplification of DNA extracted from leaf samples, produced fragments of the expected size. In 20 papaya plants lines regenerated through somatic embryogenesis it was achieved differentiate hermaphrodite plants and female plants. This is the first report on sex determination in plants obtained by somatic embryogenesis in the variety `Red Maradol'. Key words: hermaphrodite plants, multiple PCR, zygotic embryos