Poster: Reproductive Development

Abs # 455: Molecular characterization of genes controlling the sex determination in a cucumber plant

Presenter:	Hur, Yoonkang , ykhur@cnu.ac.kr
Authors	Hur, Yoonkang  (A)   Cho, Jeongki  (A)   Kwon, Youngsun  (B)   Koo, Dal-Hoe  (A)   Lee, Jeong-Ran  (C)   Bang, Jae-Wook  (A)
Affiliations:	(A): Chungnam National University, Daejon 305-764,Korea (B): Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 200-701, Korea (C): Sogang University, Seoul 100-611, Korea

Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus L.), one of the most important vegetable crops, have three types of sex expression. Monoecious is the most common type, and gynoecious and hermaphroditic are rare. The sex determination of the common type of cucumber is usually controlled by phytohormones, temperature and photoperiod. We have cloned and characterized genes controlling sex in a Korean cultivar (Winter Long) grown in two different photoperiods, a long day and short day conditions, which confer female and male flower development, respectively. Using DDRT and northern blot analysis, we cloned 20 female specific and 8 male specific genes. One of male specific clones has very high similarity to a GenBank enrolled clone (AF104393), but the function is not kwnown. To examine the function of this clone, we introduced the clone with antisense orientation into a cucumber plant . We will discuss further expression characteristics of clones and transgenesis results.