Research priority program: Grapevine Biotechnology

Besides its cultural significance, viticulture is an important branch of production in Europe, covering a total area of approx. 5.5 million hectares, which corresponds to about 68% of the vine growing area worldwide. There are about 100,000 hectares of vineyards in Germany. The by far largest share of the area used for viticultural is planted with traditional grapevine varieties that allow the production of high-quality wines for which, however, a substantial input of plant protection treatments is required. Due to persistent and consistent breeding efforts over several decades, grapevine breeders have meanwhile created the break-through to new varieties, which combine wine quality, viticultural appropriateness and disease resistance. However, it is much more difficult to marketing the new varieties compared to the well-known, traditional varieties. A focus of the research activities at AlPlanta is the purposeful improvement of elite varieties and rootstocks with regard to resistance or tolerance to biotic (viral) diseases and abiotic stress (drought, salt stress) by genetic engineering. Using this strategy, variety-specific characteristics remain unchanged and the marketing under the existing, well-known names would be possible.

Projects

• Marker-free transformation by transient expression of regeneration-promoting factors
• Marker gene elimination with the Cre/lox recombination system from grapevine as an example of woody plants.
• Induction of virus resistance by transgene- induced 'genes silencing'
• Establishment of virus resistance in grapevine by the expression recombinant antibodies (scFv) against viral protein
• Improvement of protocols for gene transfer and regeneration of genetically modified grapevines
• Development of screening methods for the selection of virus resistance in grapevines
• Discrimination of grapevine clones

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