study of genetic relationships between wild and domesticated grapevines distributed from the middle-east regions to european countries

Archaeobotanical-archaeological, cultural and historical data indicatethat grapevine domestication can be dated back from 6000 to 7000 yearsago and that it took place in the Caucasian and Middle East Regions. However,events leading to the domestication of this crop species are still an openissue. In this paper, 6 chloroplast microsatellites have been used to assessgenetic similarities among, and within, domesticated and wild grapevine accessions representative of 7 distinct geographical regions fromtheMiddle-Eastto Western Europe. Results show that 2 out of the 6 analyzed chloroplast lociare polymorphicwithin the 193 domesticated individuals and the 387 samplesof 69 wild populations. Allele variants of the Cp-SSR loci combine in a totalof 6 different haplotypes. The data show that the haplotype distribution is nothomogeneous: the 6 haplotypes are present in the domesticated varieties, butonly 5 (haplotype VI is absent) are observed in wild populations.The analysisof haplotype distribution allows discussion of the relationships between thetwo grape subspecies. The contribution of the wild grape germplasm to the domesticatedgene pool still growing in different geographical regions can be, incases, made evident, suggesting that beside domestication, gene introgressionhas also played a role in shaping the current varietal landscape of the Europeanviticulture.