Abstract

Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis (Link) Schneider) is a dioecious shrub that produces fruits in female plants. Its seeds stores liquid wax which is used in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and plastic industries. This species is generally propagated by seed. The sex of seedlings is not distinguishable by cytological and seed cultivation methods. This investigation was carried out to study the sex-specific random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers in thirteen 4-year-old jojoba plants from two provinces of Iran and DNAs of those populations were extracted by CTAB method. Out of the 20 tested primers, two primers, namely F1 and F10, produced 460 and 680 bp fragments, respectively and were importantly recognized to distinguish between female and male plants, accordingly. Also, the results of the ratio difference test showed that, more efficient sex determination of jojoba seedlings is done using both F1 and F10 primers due to gene cooperation between them. The preliminary results of this study for sex determination would help the recognition of potential fruit-bearing seedlings for having high yield per hectare in horticultural systems. Furthermore, the findings would help saving time and economic resources in jojoba breeding programs.

Key words: Jojoba, sex determination, dioecy, random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) molecular marker.

Abbreviation

Abbreviations: RAPD, Random amplified polymorphic DNA; CTAB, cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide; SCAR, sequence characterized amplified region.