Proceedings of the XLVI Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Giardini Naxos, Italy - 18/21 September, 2002

ISBN 88-900622-3-1

Poster Abstract - 1.15

MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF AN AUTOCHTONOUS GRAPE CULTIVAR OF CENTRAL ITALY

REALE S., PILLA F., ANGIOLILLO A.

Dipartimento S.A.V.A. Università degli Studi del Molise, Campobasso, Italy

grapevine, microsatellites markers, biodiversity

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera) represents one of the most important fruit crops and its cultivation is widespread world-wide. Very old varieties are still cultivated and the genetic base of the species is well preserved, represented by a huge number of different cultivars. Each country with a long tradition in wine production has autochthonous cultivars with peculiar characteristics. In order to reduce the genetic diversity erosion and to find new interesting agronomic aspects, it’s important to preserve those varieties, which are nowadays going to be substituted by more cosmopolite ones.

The presence of many synonymous and homonymous in the cultivar designation is, to date, a problem that has still to be solved. The identification and comparison of plant material by ampelographic methods is afflicted by misinterpretation, DNA-based markers provide a more reliable alternative for cultivar identification. Microsatellites or simple sequence repeat (SSRs) are valuable markers for this purpose, because of their high polymorphism, the codominant inheritance, the random distribution in genome and the conservation of the flanking region. Several primers have already been developed for grapevines by different groups and the usefulness of SSR markers for grapevine genotyping, detection of synonyms, cultivar identification and differentiation, parentage studies, have been shown.

In this study a case of suspected synonymy has been investigated using SSRs. In the Vitis International Variety Catalogue "Tintilia" or "Tintiglia," a traditional red wine cultivar of Molise, a central Italian region, is reported as a synonymous of “Bovale grande”, a cultivar of the Sardinia region.

The aim of this work was to evaluate the genetic correlation between “Tintilia” and “Bovale”. If any difference would have been detected, "Tintilia" could be certified and propagated as a new cultivar and the wine marketable as typical product.

Putative clones of "Tintilia", coming from all over the region, and some accession of "Bovale", were genotyped at the following 14 microsatellites loci: VVS2, VVS3, VVS4, VVS5, VVMD6, VVMD25, VVMD27, VVMD28, VVDM31, VVMD32, VVMD36, ssrVrZAG62, ssrVrZAG79.

The obtained data were elaborated to measure the genetic distance and verify the previously assumed synonymous. Pairwise comparison of all individuals tested was performed and trasformed into a pairwise distance matrix. Investigation resulted in the confirmation of the assumption. In fact the obtained dendrogram showed that most accession of "Tintilia" are identical among them, but different from the "Bovale" accessions.

This research was supported by the ERSAM Agency (Ente Regionale di Sviluppo Agricolo per il Molise).