Genomic Ancestry Estimation in Interspecific Grape Hybrids

Abstract

The genus Vitis (the grapevine) is a group of highly diverse, diploid woody perennial vines consisting of approximately 60 species from across the northern hemisphere. To gain insights into the use of wild Vitis species during the past century of interspecific grape breeding and to provide a foundation for marker- assisted breeding programmes, we present a principal components analysis based ancestry estimation method to calculate admixture proportions of hybrid grapes in the United States Department of Agriculture grape germplasm collection using genome-wide polymorphism data. We find that grape breeders have backcrossed to both the domesticated V. vinifera and wild Vitis species and that reasonably accurate genome-wide ancestry estimation can be performed on interspecific Vitis hybrids using a panel of fewer than 50 ancestry informative genetic markers.