ASEV honorary research lecture 2007: beyond the genome, opportunities for a modern viticulture: a research overview

Grapevine is one of the world’s most important fruit crops. All 60 2n = 38 Vitis species worldwide are diploids that cross easily; hybrids are fertile and advanced generation pedigrees are available. The cultivated grape species Vitis vinifera has the potential to become a model for fruit tree genetics. Given its cultural and economic importance, grapevine has received much attention from the scientific community in the last few years, resulting in considerable progress in genetic and genomic research. A consensus sequence of the grapevine genome was generated, providing information on overall organization, gene content, and structural components of the DNA in the 19 chromosomes of V. vinifera. Extensive genetic mapping has been conducted in Vitis ssp. based on SSR markers, including the identification of quantitative trait loci for a variety of traits. A large set of single-nucleotide polymorphisms was developed from expressed sequence tags, bacterial artificial chromosome-end sequences, and unique regions of the assembled genome of Pinot noir, providing a comprehensive grapevine genetic map. Single-nucleotide polymorphism markers represent a substantial resource for molecular breeding programs, providing a new basis for map-based gene isolation and fine-mapping quantitative trait loci by identifying candidate genes.