Investigation on Genetic Variation in Seedless Grapevine Cultivars, Using RAPD Molecular Marker

A large variety of grapevine cultivars are cultivated in Iran, amongst which seedless cultivars are regarded as the best one to make dried-fruit. The aim of this research was to discover the potential of RAPD (Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA) molecular marker to identify similarity/dissimilarity or probable homogeneity between grape cultivars. In this study, 21 seedless grape cultivars and 11 RAPD primers were used. out of 11, eight primers could amplify DNA fragments very well and showed reasonable polymorphism between cultivars. Totally 117 polymorphic bands were produced at which primer H produced the highest and primer B produced the lowest number of bands. The percentage of polymorphism ranged from 71.4 % for primer B to 100 % for primer C and the average number of bands per primer was 12.8. For statistical analysis, only the reproducible bands which their length was between 200-3000 bp were considered. Cluster analysis was carried out using Jaccard’s similarity coefficient based on UPGMA (Unweighted pair-group method of arithmetic average) method and the cultivars were classified in three main groups. The range of similarity coefficient with the average of 0.462 was determined between 0.208 to 0.716. Asgari Ghermez and Asgari Meshkin shahr cultivars showed the highest similarity and Khalili Beedaneh and Asgari Neishabour showed the lowest similarity. Therefore it could be assumed that Asgari Ghermez and Asgari Meshkinshahr cultivars posses the same origin but have been moved to different places in the course of time.