Identity and genetic relatedness of Bosnia and Herzegovina grapevine germplasm

A set of Bosnia and Herzegovina grapevine cultivars was analyzed by microsatellite markers in order to assess true cultivar identity, genetic relationships and to detect the level of genetic diversity. Survey expeditions resulted in the collection of 51 samples from 8 locations. By amplifying 22 SSR loci, 25 unique genotypes were detected, revealing new synonyms and homonyms. The number of amplified alleles was 172 and the average allele number was 7.82. The average polymorphism of analyzed loci was 71.1% and the most informative loci were VVMD28 (0.867), VChr8b (0.848), ZAG79 (0.830) and VVMD5 (0.806). Parent-offspring relationship analysis resulted in one trio elucidating the parentage of the cultivar Župljanka. A microsatellite dendrogram was constructed using the unweighted pair group method, in which genotypes clustered into two groups with subgroups, showing an overall genetic similarity of 36.8%. Assessment of true cultivar identity, identification of synonym cultivars, i.e., duplicates, will be used for establishing a grapevine germplasm collection with maximum genetic variability and minimum number of plants.

► 51 collected grapevine cultivars of Bosnia and Herzegovina were analyzed by 22 microsatellite markers.
► 25 unique fingerprints representing 23 cultivars and 2 unnamed genotypes were found.
► The results of the study will be used for establishing a non-redundant grapevine germplasm collection.