CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Understanding the relationship between genotype and phenotypic diversity is one of the most important challenges in plant biology. Thus, is essential to have the knowledge and comprehension about the different quality traits, as well as the nature and function of the genes controlling such traits. Grapevine cultivars are highly heterozygous unique genotypes that have been selected along the domestication and crop of the species. Malbec, the emblematic variety of Argentine viticulture originally comes from South West France, where it is called Côt. Besides the natural variations accumulated by this cèpage in Argentina, is evident after comparing the wines produced by these two varieties, that 160 years of adaptation to favorable climate and soil conditions developed notable differences with its ancestor.The main goals of this work are to decode the genome of Malbec and to perform a global analysis of all genes presenting genotypic differences with the genome of Còt, with the aim understanding the maturation process and identifying quality markers in the generation of the key compounds for the Malbec wines, such as its polyphenolic composition and characteristic aroma. Likewise, we are performing a systematic and objective comparison of different quality traits between several Malbec and Côt clones in the same experimental location, aiming to identify possible interesting phenotypes that correlate with the genotypic differences detected between both cèpages, putatively originated by somatic mutations accumulated during the last 160 years. Our preliminary results reveal significant differences between Malbec and Côt accessions for traits like berry and skin weight, number and weight of seeds, Brix, pH and titratable acidity. Total genomic DNA for the NGS and total RNA for RNAseq experiments were already isolated from different Malbec and Côt clones.