Insertional polymorphisms of two copia-like
(Vine-1, Tvv1) and one gypsy-like (Gret1) retrotransposon
found in the grapevine genome were studied in 29 Vitis
genotypes (Vitis arizonica, Vitis cinerea, Vitis labrusca,
Vitis rupestis, Vitis rotundifolia, Vitis vinifera subsp.
sylvestris and 23 V. vinifera subsp. sativa) using interretrotransposon
amplified polymorphism (IRAP),
retrotransposon-microsatellite amplified polymorphism
(REMAP) and sequence-specific amplified polymorphism
(SSAP) techniques. IRAP, REMAP and SSAP polymorphisms
were compared with amplified fragment length
polymorphism (AFLP), Inter-single sequence repeats
(ISSR) and SSR polymorphisms by evaluating the information
content, the number of loci simultaneously analysed
per experiment, the effectiveness of the analyses in
assessing the relationship between accessions and the
number of loci needed to obtain a coefficient of variation
of 10%. The UPGMA dendrograms of each molecular
marker system were compared and the Mantel matrix
correspondence test was applied. Furthermore, the
corresponding insertion ages of the transposable elements
were estimated for each retrotransposon subfamily analysed.
The presence of Gret1, Tvv1 and Vine-1 retrotransposons in
all analysed genotypes suggests that copia-like and gypsylike
retrotransposons are widespread in Vitis genus. The
results indicate that these retrotransposons were active before
Vitis speciation and contributed to Vitis genus evolution.
IRAP, REMAP and SSAP markers allow the discrimination
of Vitis species and V. vinifera subsp. sativa cultivars with
certainty as has been shown with AFLP, ISSR and SSR
analyses, but phylogenetic trees obtained by retrotransposonbased
molecular markers polymorphisms show some significant
differences in the allocation of the analysed accessions
compare to those obtained by ISSR, AFLP and SSR
molecular markers. The phylogenetic tree resulting from
REMAP polymorphism appeared the most representative of
the effective relationship between all analysed accessions