CHARACTERIZATION OF VITIS GERMPLASM USING RANDOM AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA MARKERS

An analysis of the amplification fragments polymorphism of DNA coming from different accessions of germplasm belonging to species and cultiv ars of the genus Vitis, was carried out using 40 primer decamers of ar bitrary sequence, The RAPD profiles showed a great intraspecific diver sity. In many cases a single primer produced a unique pattern for each species. A phylogram tree based upon presence/absence data of the pri ncipal DNA bands divided the species according to their geographical o rigins. The intraspecific polymorphism of DNA fragments was not suffic ient for an unambiguous identification of Vitis vinifera cultivars but the RAPD profiles turned out to be highly reproducible. The high capa city of this technique to generate DNA markers offers a new possibilit y for the study of the genetic relationships in the genus Vitis.