MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF ALBANIAN GRAPEVINE VARIETIES BY MICROSATELLITE MARKERS

Abstract: Six Albanian grapevine accessions were genotyped by microsatellite profiling using microsatellite loci, in order to identify their molecular profile and to evaluate the relationships among them. 6 most cultivated grapevine cultivars including Shesh i Zi, Shesh i Bardhe, Kallmet, Vlosh, etc., were tested using a set of 8 microsatellite markers, widely used in other studies. The study was conducted at the national grapevine collection held at the Agricultural Technology Transfer Centre of Vlore. Based on the microsatellite loci, the Albanian accessions of grapevine show a great diversity. Microsatellite profiling resulted in 6 single profiles for the 6 accessions. Clustering analyses based on the proportion of shared alleles resulted in two clusters containing all accessions. The study aimed at determination of the grapevine accessions identity by molecular markers, confirmation of identity of previosly studied morphological characteristics with the future objective to assess the genetic diversity of Albanian grapevine germplasm.