Genetic analysis reveals an east-west divide within North American Vitis species that mirrors their resistance to Pierce's disease

Abstract

Pierce's disease (PD) caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa is a deadly disease of grapevines. This study used 20 SSR markers to genotype 326 accessions of grape species collected from the southeastern and southwestern United States, Mexico and Costa Rica. Two hundred sixty-six of these accessions, and an additional 12 PD resistant hybrid cultivars developed from southeastern US grape species, were evaluated for PD resistance. Disease resistance was evaluated by quantifying the level of bacteria in stems and measuring PD symptoms on the canes and leaves. Both Bayesian clustering and principal coordinate analyses identified two groups with an east-west divide: group 1 consisted of grape species from the southeastern US and Mexico, and group 2 consisted of accessions collected from the southwestern US and Mexico. The Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range appeared to be a phylogeographic barrier. The state of Texas was identified as a potential hybridization zone. The hierarchal STRUCTURE analysis on each group showed clustering of unique grape species. An east-west divide was also observed for PD resistance. With the exception of Vitis candicans and V. cinerea accessions collected from Mexico, all other grape species as well as the resistant southeastern hybrid cultivars were susceptible to the disease. Southwestern US grape accessions from drier desert regions showed stronger resistance to the disease. Strong PD resistance was observed within three distinct genetic clusters of V. arizonica which is adapted to drier environments and hybridizes freely with other species across its wide range.

Fig 1. Graphical presentation of the PD resistance of accessions from each collection location based on ELISA readings of stem tissue after greenhouse testing.

The data were grouped into five categories based on log-transformed estimations of bacterial levels: 1 = green, highly resistant (6.9–9.1); 2 = light green, resistant (9.2–11.1); 3 = yellow, moderately susceptible (11.2–13.1); 4 = orange, susceptible (13.2–15.1); and 5 = burgundy, highly susceptible (15.2 and above).

Fig 2. Graphical presentation of the phylogeographic results based on the membership estimates generated by the STRUCTURE program for each genotype.

Bright cyan represents group 1 consisting of the southeastern US grape species. Moderate red represents group 2 consisting of the southwestern US grape species. Details of the accessions in each group are provided in supplementary S1 Table.

Fig 3

a) Bayesian STRUCTURE bar plot of membership for 326 accessions (K = 2). Bright cyan represents group 1 (K1 = southeastern US grape species) and moderate red represents group 2 (K2 = southwestern US grape species). STRUCTURE analysis on each group resulted in four distinct sub-groups within K1 and three sub-groups within K2. For details of membership coefficient values see S6 Table. b) Principal coordinate analysis for each group resulted in the comparable results to the Bayesian analysis. The color coding of the STRUCTURE assignment was used for the PCoA display.