Sex-linked molecular markers are being obtained,which would be essential to be used in the screening of different sex of dioecious plants at the seedling stage. Furthermore,it is important in cloning the gene related to the sex. In this study the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique was employed with the objective to find markers linked to sex determination in Asparagus. A total of 100 primers were tested with the same PCR cycling procedure. A female-associated fragment with a length of about 867bp was generated with S12 primer. The fragment was cloned and sequenced,showing it is abundant in AT and contains 2 shorter open reading frames. In order to convert the RAPD marker into SCAR (sequence characterized amplified regions) marker,24bp specific primers were constructed and used for PCR amplifying. The female-linked dominant SCAR marker was obtained,which would be efficient to identify the different sex of Asparagus officinalis L.
