Estimation of Genetic Variation in Grapes Based on RAPD and Isozyme Analysis
Genetic relationships among 42 grape accession of at least 15 species were estimated and compared using RAPD and isozyme techniques. These accessions were either hybrids or wild collections of the Asiatic species, the American species, the European grape (V. vinifera), and muscadine grape (V. rotundifolia). A total of 196 RAPD fragments were generated from twenty 10-mer primers. The pairwise similarities among the accession ranged from 0.46 to 0.94. A dendrogram was generated based on the RAPD similarity coefficients. Species/accessions were basically grouped together in accordance with their geographic origins. The similarities and dendrogram resulted from the RAPD analysis were consistent with the ones generated from the isozyme data, and also consistent with the known taxonomic information. This result suggest that the RAPD method, like isozyme, is an useful tool for studying grape genetic relationship/diversity and origination.