Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2021, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (1): 90-103.DOI: 10.11983/CBB20123

• SPECIAL TOPICS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research Progress on Sex Determination Genes of Woody Plants

Jing Lu1,2, Yingnan Chen1,2,*(), Tongming Yin1,2   

  1. 1Key Laboratory of Forest Genetics and Biotechnology of Ministry of Education, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
    2Co-Innovation Center for the Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
  • Received:2020-07-09 Accepted:2020-10-14 Online:2021-01-01 Published:2021-01-15
  • Contact: Yingnan Chen

Abstract: Dioecious plants provide ideal materials for studying the sex determination mechanisms and the origin and evolution of sex chromosomes. Cloning of sex determination genes is crucial for revealing the sex-determination mechanism. There are many woody dioecious plant species, which contain two opposite sex determination systems: XY (females are homogametic XX and males are heterogametic XY) and ZW (females are heterogametic ZW and males are homogametic ZZ). Besides, trees of different sexes may have different economic values. Studies on the sex determination of woody plants not only have theoretical significances, but also have potential practical applications. With the development of large-scale sequencing technology, more and more sex determination genes of woody plants have been identified and cloned, which provides strong experimental evidence for the evolutionary history of dioecious plants and sex chromosomes. In this review, we summarized the important research progress on sex determination genes of woody plants, and discussed some future perspectives in this area.

Key words: dioecy, woody plant, sex determination system, sex determination gene, gene cloning