Assessment of genetic diversity in Grapevine cultivars using IRAP and REMAP retrotransposon_based markers

Determination of genetic diversity in plant material is the initial step to identify and preservation of genetic resources and also is important in conducting of breeding programs. In order to study genetic variation among 25 grapevine cultivars of Shahrood and Sisakht regions, nine retrotransposonal primer combinations including 3 IRAP primers and 6 REMAP primers combination were used. Totally, 87 bands produced that 79 bands were polymorphic among cultivars. Numbers of polymorphic bands varied from 4 (Tvv1Fa㋍) to 12 (Vin1Fa) bands per primer. Expected heterozygosis ranged from 0.29 (Tvv1Fa Ms8) to 0.45 (Vine1Fa Ms3) with an average of 0.35. Average of polymorphism percentage among evaluated cultivars was 95.83%. Principle coordinates analysis (PCoA) showed that first five components explained 68.5% of total variance. Cluster analysis using UPGMA method based on Jaccard similarity coefficient with cophenetic correlation coefficient of 0.89, divided grapevine cultivars into 6 different groups. In the first to sixth group, 13, 4, 2, 3, 2 and 1 cultivars were assigned respectively. According to this grouping, cultivars named Syah-Daneh Boland, Syah-Daneh Gerd and Asgari from SySakht city were assigned in three different groups that showed genetic differences among these cultivars. The results of this study indicated that IRAP and REMAP markers developed based on active retrotransposons in the grapevine genome can be used as efficient molecular markers to accelerate grapevine breeding programs.