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cultivars, but when resolving complicated relationships or defining parentage trees between
closely related cultivars, many more are needed. For the purpose of my research, SSR
markers were employed to identify and resolve complicated relationships between a group
of closely related Croatian cultivars and Zinfandel. A schematic linear representation of a
microsatellite repeat is shown in Figure 1.
Genetic results obtained by SSR molecular markers presented in my doctoral
dissertation support the hypothesis of a Croatian origin of Zinfandel, as well as a high
degree of relatedness between Zinfandel and autochthonous Croatian cultivars. In fact, we
discovered that Zinfandel is an offspring in the cross between two autochthonous Croatian
wine grape varieties, Plavac mali (the predominant red cultivar on the Pelješac peninsula)
and Dobriþiü (a neglected red variety on the island of Šolta). Since Zinfandel is in the
center of complex genetic relationships with native Croatian cultivars, and even plays a
parental role in one, we hypothesize that this variety in the past served as the pollinator of
local varieties. It was most probably eradicated and discontinued from further exploitation
in Croatia due to several reasons: pests and diseases at the turn of the 20 th century that
resulted in a major loss of native Croatian varieties, modern production demands, and a
shift of viticultural emphasis in Croatia towards introduced varieties such Chardonnay,
Rhine riesling, etc.
Based on allele frequency analyses of Greek, Italian and Croatian Vitis vinifera L.
gene pools, and discovered cultivar relationships, I concluded that the Croatian gene pool is
the most likely source of Zinfandel. Subsequently to the completion of my Ph.D. research,
several (only 9!) Zinfandels (under the local name of Crljenak kaštelanski, Figure 2) were
discovered in an old vineyard in Kaštel Novi, near the major Dalmatian port of Split. Their
genetic match with Californian Zinfandel was confirmed in Professor Meredith's laboratory
at UC Davis.
The observed gene diversity of 77.7%, which I calculated for the Croatian varieties,
reveals a substantial level of genetic variation in the Croatian population of cultivars and
points to the significance of preservation of more than 100 unique genotypes found in
Croatia today.
I reckon that the bioinformatics tools to which I was introduced in the NATO
sponsored course held in May of 2003 in Dubrovnik, Croatia, will help me in expanding the
analyses and confirming the findings of my research. The online available databases of
DNA sequences of various organisms keep increasing and, hopefully, they will soon
include the genetic profiles of major grapevine cultivars exploited in Europe.
References
[1]
Alleweldt G. (1988) The genetic resources of Vitis . Genetic and geographic origin of grape cultivars,
their prime names and synonyms. Second ed. Federal Research Center for Grape Breeding,
Geilweilerhof, Germany.
[2]
Buliü S. (1949) Dalmatinska ampelografija, Poljoprivredni nakladni zavod, Zagreb.
[3]
Botta R., Scott N. S., Eynard I., Thomas M. R. (1995) Evaluation of microsatellite sequence-tagged
site markers for characterizing Vitis vinifera cultivars, Vitis , 34(2):99-102.
[4]
Bowers J. E., Meredith C. P. (1997) The parentage of a classic wine grape, Cabernet Sauvignon,
Nature genetics , 16:84-87.
[5]
Bowers J. E., Dangl G. S., Vignani R., Meredith C. P. (1996) Isolation and characterization of new
polymorphic simple sequence repeat loci in grape ( Vitis vinifera L.), Genome, 39:628-633.
[6]
Cipriani G., Frazza G., Peterlunger E., Testollin R. (1994) Grapevine fingerprinting using
microsatellite repeats, Vitis , 33:211-215.
[7]
Delseny M., Laroche M., Penon P. (1983) Detection of sequences with Z-DNA forming potential in
higher plants, Biochem Bioph. Res. Commun ., 116:113-20.
[8]
Dettweiler E., Jung A., Ziprian E., Töpfer R. (2000a) Grapevine cultivar Müller-Thurgau and its true to
type descent, Vitis , 39(2):63-65.
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