We have embarked on a molecular cloning approach to the investigation of sex determination in Silene latifolia Poiret, a dioecious plant species with morphologically distinguishable sex chromosomes. One of our key objectives was to define a range of genes that are up-regulated in male plants in response to Y chromosome sex-determination genes. Here we present the characterization of eight male-specific cDNA sequences and classify these according to their expression dynamics to provide a range of molecular markers for dioecious male flower development. Cenetically female S. latifolia plants undergo a partia1 sex reversal in response to infection by the parasitic smut fungus Ustilago violacea. This phenomenon has been exploited in these studies; male-specific cDNAs have been further categorized as inducible or noninducible in female plants by smut fungus infection. Analysis of the organ-specific expression of male-specific probes in male and female flowers has also identified a gene that is regulated in a sex-specific manner in nonreproductive floral tissues common to both male and female plants. This observation provides, to our knowledge, the first molecular marker for dominant effects of the Y chromosome in nonreproductive floral organs.Dioecy is an outbreeding mechanism in which male and female reproductive organs develop on separate individuals. This breeding strategy is used by approximately 4% of angiosperm species (Yampolski and Yampolski, 1922). However, only five families of flowering plants are known to contain dioecious species with morphologically distinguishable sex chromosomes (Parker, 1990). Silene latifolia Poiret (white campion), also known as Silene alba (Miller
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