Genetic characterization of Iranian grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) and their relationships with Italian ecotypes

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is one of the oldest and most important fruit crops in the world. Iran is considered as one of the regions where grapevine plants have been used and taken into cultivation. In the present study, 12 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to evaluate the genetic diversity among Iranian grape cultivars and their relationships with Italian ones. The observed number of alleles (N) per locus varied from 6 to 20 and also the number of effective alleles (Ne) ranged from 1.34 to 2.00 among cultivars, indicating that the SSRs were highly informative. The polymorphism information content (PIC) values ranged from 0.49 to 0.87 and classified the six loci as highly informative markers (PIC > 0.70). The mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) was higher (0.85) than the mean expected heterozygosity (He) (0.43), demonstrating a random union of gametes in the population. Genetic similarity among cultivars ranged from 0.14 to 0.93, indicating high genetic variation among them. UPGMA and Bayesian clustering analyses revealed high genetic variation among studied cultivars and grouped them into two main clusters. The present findings might render striking information in breeding management strategies for genetic conservation and cultivar improvement.