De Luca, Ylenia Development of molecular and morphological markers for rapid sex screening in plants of agronomic and horticultural interest. [Tesi di dottorato]
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| Tipologia del documento: | Tesi di dottorato |
|---|---|
| Lingua: | English |
| Titolo: | Development of molecular and morphological markers for rapid sex screening in plants of agronomic and horticultural interest |
| Autori: | Autore Email De Luca, Ylenia ylenia.deluca@unina.it |
| Numero di pagine: | 80 |
| Istituzione: | Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II |
| Dipartimento: | Biologia |
| Dottorato: | Biologia |
| Ciclo di dottorato: | 36 |
| Coordinatore del Corso di dottorato: | nome email Esposito, Sergio sergio.esposito@unina.it |
| Tutor: | nome email Cafasso, Donata [non definito] Cozzolino, Salvatore [non definito] |
| Numero di pagine: | 80 |
| Parole chiave: | plant, sex determination, secondary sexual characters, sex-linked molecular marker |
| Settori scientifico-disciplinari del MIUR: | Area 05 - Scienze biologiche > BIO/01 - Botanica generale |
| Depositato il: | 02 Lug 2024 10:59 |
| Ultima modifica: | 09 Mar 2026 10:50 |
| URI: | http://www.fedoa.unina.it/id/eprint/15722 |
Abstract
This study addresses the urgent need for early sex identification in dioecious plants, focusing on Cycas revoluta. For C. revoluta, a popular ornamental species with toxic seeds from female plants, seedling morphological traits were examined and correlated with molecular sex determination. The results revealed a sexually dimorphic trait, the distance between leaflets on the leaf rachis (IRD), showing clear distinctions between male and female individuals, particularly in the early developmental stage of the plant. This finding suggests the establishment of sexual dimorphism in leaf morphology very early in the life cycle of C. revoluta. Whenever available, morphological traits for sex differentiation in greenhouses and plant nurseries can represent a rapid and economic tool when coupled with automatized image recognition systems. Furthermore, we employed reduced representation genomic analysis using ddRAD sequencing and a dedicated bioinformatics pipeline to assess the feasibility of this approach as a rapid alternative to whole-genome sequencing in developing sex-linked molecular markers. This is particularly significant for non-model plant species characterized by large genomes, as exemplified by C. revoluta. This method identified male-specific contigs, indicative of an XY sex-determination system. BLASTn analysis and alignments confirmed the presence of contigs on both the X and Y chromosomes, with an SNP within a contig allowing for the development of a male-specific molecular marker. Validation of this marker confirmed its specificity for the Y chromosome in C. revoluta. The nearly equal sex ratio observed in F1 generation seedlings supported the XY sex-determination system in C. revoluta. The study highlights the effectiveness of ddRAD sequencing for the rapid development of sex-linked molecular markers in non-model plant species, with potential applications in agriculture, breeding, and conservation activities.
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