DNA TYPING OF GRAPEVINES - A UNIVERSAL METHODOLOGY AND DATABASE FOR DESCRIBING CULTIVARS AND EVALUATING GENETIC RELATEDNESS

With established ampelographic techniques for grapevine identification it is often difficult to achieve a satisfactory, objective result. We have developed a DNA typing system using sequence-tagged microsatelli te site markers as a means of differentiating cultivars of grapevine. A semi-automated analysis procedure was linked to an electronic databa se and found to be an objective and reliable system for cultivar ident ification using this simple marker type. The accumulated DNA typing da ta from over eighty cultivars demonstrated that cultivars that are dif ficult to differentiate phenotypically using ampelographic techniques can be distinguished by DNA typing. Parentage analysis uncovered error s in parent assignment or cultivar identification in specific cases. T he electronic database has a conservative format to take into account the occurrence of null alleles and the possibility of missed alleles. Computer-assisted comparisons of cultivars in the database can be perf ormed and various approaches for estimating the match probability that two unrelated cultivars have the same genotype simply due to chance a re discussed. We suggest that further development of the database thro ugh international co-operation using standardised sequence-tagged site markers offers the possibility of achieving a universal grapevine ide ntification system.