Rediscovery of historical vitis vinifera varieties from the South Anatolia region by using amplified fragment length polymorphism and simple sequence repeat DNA fingerprinting methods

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/gen-2012-0175

Anatolia played an important role in the diversification and spread of economically important Vitis vinifera varieties. Although several biodiversity studies have been conducted with local cultivars in different regions of Anatolia, our aim is to gain a better knowledge on the biodiversity of endangered historical Vitis vinifera varieties with potential viticulture characteristics in the North Adana region of South Anatolia. We also demonstrate the genetic relatedness in a selected subset of widely cultivated and commercialized Vitis vinifera collection cultivars obtained from the National Grapevine Germplasm at the Institute of Viticulture, Turkey. In the present study,microsatellites were used for pre-selection of 27 collection varieties among 72accessionsto scale down the sample size.We used amplified fragment length polymorphisms to further determine genetic relatedness among collection and local Vitis vinifera cultivars.The UPGMA cluster and principal component analyses revealed that Saimbeyli local cultivars form a distinct group that is distantly related to a selected subset of Vitis vinifera collection varieties from all over Turkey.To our knowledge, this is the first study conducted with these cultivars. Further preservation and use of these potential viticultural varieties will be helpful to avoid genetic erosion and to facilitate agriculture in the region.