Vineyard environments influence grapevine phenotypic traits and DNA methylation patterns in a clone-dependent way

VARELA A.; IBAÑEZ V.N.; ALONSO R.; ZAVALLO D.; ASURMENDI S.; GOMEZ TALQUENCA S.; MARFIL C.; BERLI F.

PLANT CELL REPORTS

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2020 vol. 40 p. 111 - 125

0721-7714

Clonal selection and vegetative propagation determine low genetic variability in grapevine cultivars, although is common to observe diverse phenotypes. Environmental signals may induce epigenetic changes altering gene expression and thereby the phenotype. The range of phenotypes that a genotype expresses in different environments is known as phenotypic plasticity. Cytosine DNA methylation is the most studied epigenetic mechanism, but only few works evaluated this novel source of variability in grapevines. In the present study, we analyzed the effects on phenotypic traits and epigenome of three Vitis vinifera cv. Malbec clones cultivated in two contrasting vineyards of Mendoza, Argentina. Anonymous regions of the genome were analyzed using Methylation-Sensitive Amplified Polymorphism (MSAP) markers. Clone-dependent phenotypic and epigenetic variability between vineyards were found. The clone that presented the clearer MSAP differentiation between vineyards was selected and analyzed through Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing (RRBS). Twenty-nine differentially methylated regions (DMRs) between the vineyards were identified and associated to genes and/or promoters. We discuss about a group of genes that could provide a hint to propose a hormonal cross talk alteration in response to the environment and conclude that DNA methylation has an important role in the phenotypic plasticity of grapevine and that epigenetic modulation is clone-dependent.