Preliminary Study of Ancient DNA from a 215-year-old Grapevine Herbarium

Simon de Rojas Clemente y Rubio (1777 to 1827) is considered the father of modern ampelography. He developed the first scientific method for describing grapevine varieties through the examination of material he collected in Andalusia between 1802 and 1804. The Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid conserves the material he collected and preserved (leaves and shoots). This herbarium, the oldest of all grapevine variety herbaria, is invaluable for ampelographic and other studies (such as genetic diversity, molecular characterization, or viticultural history studies) and provides unique insight into early 19th century (the pre-phylloxera era) grapevine cultivation. The present work reports a DNA extraction protocol and a redefining of the simple sequence repeat primers routinely used in grapevine characterization, which allowed successful amplification of the ancient DNA extracted from Clemente's herborized material.