Molecular markers are used efficiently in the development and identification of gender-specific PCR-based markers in date palm. There is mounting evidence that different marker systems vary in their mechanisms of detecting polymorphism and genome coverage. Therefore, they could complement each other to generate accurate sex-specific markers in date palm. This chapter describes the uses of PCR-based molecular markers to develop and identify the gender in different date palm genotypes; these are amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), start codon targeted polymorphism (SCoT), conserved DNA-derived polymorphism (CDDP), intron-targeted amplified polymorphism (ITAP), and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). Also described is how to characterize the identified markers by Sanger sequencing and to explore their functions through alignment of their sequences with the Genbank databases.
Keywords: AFLP; CDDP; ITAP; RAPD; SCoT; Sex-specific marker.