Meristem culture and somatic embryogenesis are effective tools for virus elimination of vegetatively propagated crops including grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.). While both have been shown to be useful to eliminate the main grapevine viruses, their efficiency differs depending on the virus and grapevine variety. In our work, we investigated the efficiency of these two virus elimination methods using small RNA high-throughput sequencing (HTS) and RT-PCR as virus diagnostics. Field grown mother plants of four clones representing three cultivars, infected with different viruses and viroids, were selected for elimination via somatic embryogenesis (SE) and meristem culture (ME). Our results show for the first time that using SE, elimination in mother plants was effective for all viruses, i.e., grapevine rupestris vein feathering virus (GRVFV), grapevine Syrah virus 1 (GSyV-1), Grapevine virus T (GVT) and grapevine Pinot gris virus (GPGV). This study also confirms previous studies showing that SE is a possible strategy for the elimination of GFkV, GRSPaV, HSVd, and GYSVd-1. Our results demonstrate that the efficacy of virus elimination via SE is relatively high while the purging of viroids is lower. Our work provides evidence that the efficiency of SE is comparable to that of the technically difficult ME technique, and that SE will offer a more effective strategy for the production of virus-free grapevine in the future.
Keywords: meristem culture; sRNA HTS; somatic embryogenesis; virus elimination.