Aflps in genetic identification and genome analysis of grapevines

Resumen

We have analyzed the usefulness of AFLPs in the identification of grapevine cultivars and clones. Once the appropriate amplification conditions were selected, AFLPs allowed obtaining more than one hundred amplified bands per reaction. Fifty per cent of these amplified bands were polymorphic in the grapevine collections analyzed. Under these amplification conditions, a single primer combination was enough to distinguish all the different cultivars in a given collection. The high effective multiplex ratio of AFLPs made them the most effective markers when compared with other molecular markers like isozymes, RAPDs or microsatellites also used in grapevine identification. Thus, AFLPs provided a fast and reliable tool to identify specific genotypes and genetic redundancies with very high likelihood. The possibility of screening a high number of genomic sites per reaction and to perform as many different reactions as required also allowed searching for polymorphic bands among clonal selections derived from the same cultivar. The analysis of more than 500 amplified fragments has allowed the identification of intracultivar polymorphisms that could help to distinguish specific clones within given cultivars.