Comparative genomics of Vitis vinifera and Muscadinia rotundifolia for the study of disease resistance in the Vitaceae

ANR funded project ANR-08-GENM-007, with the support of CNIV (Comité National des Interprofessions des Vins d'appellation d'origine)

Muscadinia rotundifolia is closely related to Vitis and it is a source of resistance to several pathogens that is currently being used as a genitor in breeding programmes at INRA.
 The main goal of this project is to take advantage of the existence of the grapevine genome sequence to accelerate the functional characterization of the resistance to several grapevine pathogens found in M. rotundifolia. To achieve this goal, a step of development of resources for the analysis and exploitation of the syntheny between V. vinifera and M. rotundifolia is required.

 The stages of the project are:

•  Development of markers for genetic mapping in M. rotundifolia.
•  Genetic mapping in M. rotundifolia and development of a comparative genomic map with V. vinifera. Comparing both genetic maps will unveil the degree of syntheny existing between both species and reveal the position of the clusters of resistance genes in M. rotundifolia.
•  Study of microsyntheny between M. rotundifolia and V. vinifera in two regions involved into disease resistance and study of the mechanisms of introgression. This research will result in a better understanding of the suppression of genetic recombination found in some hybrids Vitis x Muscadinia.
•  Constitution of a collection of M. rotundifolia NBS-LRR resistance genes and preliminary testing of candidate genes. Anchoring a M. rotundifolia BAC library to the grapevine reference genome sequence using the BES, assisted by comparative mapping, will result in the identification of M. rotundifolia BAC clones containing resistance genes. The sequencing of some of these BAC clones will allow the identification of candidate genes.