DEMETRA relies on the availability of two germplasm collections of grapevines: a full-sib family and a germplasm collection. The high-throughput genotyping of the two collections combined with the integration of the phenotypic data generated in Milestone 2 will allow the set-up marker-trait association analysis (Milestone 3) and the study of coding and small non-coding RNAs (Milestone 4).

Milestone 2 Intro

The core of Milestone 3 is the detection of markers and candidate genes in linkage with resistance/susceptibility to PM through a single-family QTL analysis (Activity 3.1) and a GWA study (Activity 3.2). This analysis will rely on the accurate genotyping (Milestone1) and phenotyping (Milestone2) of the two germplasm collections. The detection of molecular markers in strong linkage disequilibrium with the traits of interest will allow the in silico annotation of the genetic interval underlying each QTLs.

The infection of grape from a pathogen induces a global transcriptional reprogramming which allows the activation of defence mechanisms. Such reprogramming network is made of transcripts differentially regulated during the infection and part of this regulation is made by conserved regulatory functions of miRNA. The aim of this Milestone is the identification and the analysis of the arrangement and distribution of coding and small non coding RNAs in infected leaves of grape selected during the first year of the project according to the results obtained in Milestone 3. In particular, individuals showing favourable (resistant to PM) or unfavourable (susceptible to PM) QTL alleles will be selected and total RNA sequencing will be used to detect and quantify the coding RNAs and the small non coding RNAs (so called microRNAs). 

This milestone is aimed at the dissemination of the information about the project, its research units, objectives, approaches and results, and to facilitate the collaboration and the information exchange between relevant research and agricultural communities, to reinforce public engagement of DEMETRA components and create dedicated social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram).