Giorgio Gambino

• Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection, Italian National Research Council

Grapevine is an economically important crop, affected by major production losses due to high virus prevalence. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can reduce the impact of plant biotic stresses. However, hormonal response to the simultaneous presence of viruses and AMF remains largely unknown. In this study, we explored the potential of AMF to modif...

Physiological and molecular mechanisms underpinning plant water stress responses still need deeper investigation. Particularly, the analysis of rootstock‐mediated signals represents a complex research field, offering potential applicative perspectives for improving the adaptation of fruit crops to environmental stresses. Nonetheless, fundamental kn...

The implementation of genome editing strategies in grapevine is the easiest way to improve sustainability and resilience while preserving the original genotype. Among others, the Mildew Locus‐O ( MLO ) genes have already been reported as good candidates to develop powdery mildew‐immune plants. A never‐explored grapevine target is NPR3 , a negative...

Grafting has been exploited since 7000 BC to enhance productivity, disease resistance and adaptability of cultivated plants to stressful conditions especially in woody crops such as grapevine (Vitis spp.). On the contrary, the application of sequence specific double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) to control fungal pathogens and insect pests has only been r...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have been shown to improve plant host tolerance to biotic stresses. However, AMF-mediated protection against virus diseases have been highly variable and poorly investigated in perennial crops. In this study, we investigated the influence of AMF on virus concentration and distribution in grapevine coinfected with...

Yellow mosaic (YM) of grapevine caused by grapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV, Nepovirus, transmitted by root nematodes) consists of a persistent, yellow chrome discoloration occurring on the whole blade of the leaves, during spring and summer. Generally, the symptom reverts to a normal green color by late summer and is often observed in several vine bra...

The main bottleneck in the application of biotechnological breeding methods to woody species is due to the in vitro regeneration recalcitrance shown by several genotypes. On the other side, woody species, especially grapevine ( Vitis vinifera L.), use most of the pesticides and other expensive inputs in agriculture, making the development of effici...

The fight against fraud in the wine sector requires continuous improvements and validations of new technologies applicable to musts and wines. Starting from published data from the Vitis18kSNP array, a series of new specific single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers have been identified for some important north-western Italian cultivars, such as...

Engineering the plant microbiome with beneficial endophytic bacteria can improve the growth, health, and productivity of the holobiont. Here, we administered two beneficial bacterial strains, Kosakonia VR04 sp. and Rhizobium GR12 sp., to micropropagated grapevine cuttings obtained via somatic embryogenesis. While both strains colonized the plant en...

The final characteristics of a wine are strongly influenced by must varietal composition. Further, wine quality and value can be heavily modified if grape varieties other than those expected/allowed are used, especially in the case of monovarietal wines. Thus, genetic traceability is an important tool used to protect the authenticity of commercial...

BACKGROUND Chemical products against fungi and oomycetes pose serious environmental issues. In the last decade, the use of less impacting active ingredients was encouraged to reduce chemical inputs in viticulture. In this study, the effect of different antifungal compounds on grapevine agronomic, physiological, and molecular responses in the vineya...

The negative effects of viruses and the positive effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on grapevine performance are well reported, in contrast to the knowledge about their interactive effects in perennial plants, e.g., in grapevine. To elucidate the physiological consequences of grapevine–AMF–virus interactions, two different AMF inoculum (...

In vitro plant regeneration is a pivotal process in genetic engineering to obtain large numbers of transgenic, cisgenic and gene edited plants in the frame of functional gene or genetic improvement studies. However, several issues emerge as regeneration is not universally possible across the plant kingdom and many variables must be considered. In g...

To understand how grapevine sinks compete with each other during water stress and subsequent rehydration, carbon (C) allocation patterns in drought‐rehydrated vines (REC) at the beginning of fruit ripening were compared with control vines maintained under drought (WS) or fully irrigated (WW). In the 30 days following rehydration, the quantity and d...

Fungi and oomycetes found in vineyards cause diseases such as powdery and downy mildew. Consequently, conventional and alternative agronomical practices are widely used prior to harvest to protect grapes. Alternative products are considered more eco-friendly and environmentally sustainable in comparison to conventional chemical products. However, t...

Grapevine is one of the most cultivated fruit plant among economically relevant species in the world. It is vegetatively propagated and can be attacked by more than 80 viruses with possible detrimental effects on crop yield and wine quality. Preventive measures relying on extensive and robust diagnosis are fundamental to guarantee the use of virus-...

Grapevines are challenged by a range of diseases and pests, causing economic losses and requiring often costly approaches to mitigate damage. Public interest in reducing the use of chemicals is a related challenge, along with climate change. Yet, the Vitis gene pool provides vast resources for the development of genetic resistance in rootstock and...

Background ‘Nebbiolo’ is a grapevine cultivar typical of north-western Italy, appreciated for producing high-quality red wines. Grapevine cultivars are characterized by possessing highly heterozygous genomes, including a great incidence of genomic rearrangements larger than 50 bp, so called structural variations (SVs). Even though abundant, SVs are...

Grapevine (Vitis spp.) is a widespread fruit tree hosting many viral entities that interact with the plant modifying its responses to the environment. The production of virus‐free plants is becoming increasingly crucial for the use of grapevine as a model species in different studies. Using high‐throughput RNA sequencing, the viromes of seven mothe...

The importance of plants as complex entities influenced by genomes of the associated microorganisms is now seen as a new source of variability for a more sustainable agriculture, also in the light of ongoing climate change. For this reason, we investigated through metatranscriptomics whether the taxa profile and behaviour of microbial communities a...

More than 80 viral species, many of which are not associated with a clear disease or symptomatology, can infect grapevine. The study of grapevine-virus interactions in recent years is playing an increasingly important role and these studies have shown that the molecular and physiological responses to a virus greatly vary depending on the viral stra...

‘Nebbiolo’ is a well-known grapevine variety used to produce prestigious monovarietal Italian red wines. Genetic traceability is an important tool used to protect the authenticity of high-quality wines. SNP-based assays are an effective method to reach this aim in wines, but several issues have been reported for the authentication of commercial win...

Somatic embryogenesis (SE) represents the most appropriate tool for next-generation breeding methods in woody plants such as grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.). However, in this species the SE competence is strongly genotype dependent and the molecular basis of this phenomenon is poorly understood. We explored the genetic and epigenetic basis of SE in g...

Vitis vinifera ‘Nebbiolo’ is one of the most important wine grape cultivars used to produce prestigious high-quality wines known throughout the world, such as Barolo and Barbaresco. ‘Nebbiolo’ is a distinctive genotype characterized by medium/high vigor, long vegetative and ripening cycles, and limited berry skin color rich in 3′-hydroxylated antho...

Downy mildew, caused by Plasmopara viticola, is one of the most severe diseases of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.). Genetic resistance is an effective and sustainable control strategy, but major resistance genes (encoding receptors for specific pathogen effectors) introgressed from wild Vitis species, although effective, may be non-durable because th...

Key Message The tendency of somatic embryogenesis to regenerate plants only from the L1 layer, associated with the spread of chimerism in grapevine, must be carefully considered in the framework of biotechnological improvement programmes. Abstract Grapevine is an important fruit crop with a high economic value linked to traditional genotypes that...

European grapevine cultivars are highly susceptible to many pathogens that are managed through large pesticide use. Nevertheless, the European policies promote pesticide use reduction and new environmentally friendly methods for a more sustainable agriculture. In this framework, grapevine genetic improvement could benefit from New Plant Breeding Te...

Flavescence dorée (FD) is a destructive phytoplasma disease of European grapevines. Spontaneous and cultivar-dependent recovery (REC) may occur in the field in FD-infected vines starting the year following the first symptoms. However, the biological underpinnings of this process are still largely unexplored. In this study, transcriptome sequencing...

Grapevine may be affected simultaneously by several pathogens whose complex interplay is largely unknown. We studied the effects of infection by two grapevine viruses on powdery mildew and downy mildew development and the molecular modifications induced in grapevines by their multiple interactions. Grapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV) and grapevine rupes...

Structural Variants (SVs) are a widely unexplored source of genetic variation, both due to methodological limitations and because they are generally associated to deleterious effects. However, with the advent of long-range genomic platforms, it has become easier to directly detect SVs. In the same direction, clonally propagated crops provide a uniq...

Northwestern Italy is a wine region of the world with the highest of reputations, where top quality wines of remarkable economic value are produced from traditional, long-cultivated varieties. Kinship analyses were performed using 32 microsatellite loci and more than 10 K single-nucleotide polymorphism markers on 227 traditional grapes mostly from...

Molecular changes associated with response to powdery mildew (PM) caused by Erysiphe necator have been largely explored in Vitis vinifera cultivars, but little is known on transcriptional and metabolic modifications following application of resistance elicitors against this disease. In this study, the whole transcriptome sequencing, and hormone and...

Viticulture is one of the horticultural systems in which antifungal treatments can be extremely frequent, with substantial economic and environmental costs. New products, such as biofungicides, resistance inducers and biostimulants, may represent alternative crop protection strategies respectful of the environmental sustainability and food safety....

Viticulture is a cropping system in which treatment against fungal diseases (in particular powdery and downy mildews) can be extremely frequent. Accordingly, a reduction in antimicrobial treatments and the application of environmentally-friendly compounds are becoming increasingly important for a more sustainable viticulture. In addition to their e...

Grapevine is one of the most important and globally widespread fruit species, with a high impact on the economy of many countries but with an intense environmental effect. Therefore, new environmentally friendly defense strategies against fungal pathogens are needed for more sustainable agriculture. A novel emerging approach is spray-induced gene s...

The reduction of antimicrobial treatments and mainly the application of environmentally friendly compounds, such as resistance elicitors, is an impelling challenge to undertake more sustainable agriculture. We performed this research to study the effectiveness of non-conventional compounds in reducing leaf fungal attack and to investigate whether t...

Several research studies were focused to understand how grapevine cultivars respond to environment; nevertheless, the biological mechanisms tuning this phenomenon need to be further deepened. Particularly, the molecular processes underlying the interplay between clones of the same cultivar and environment were poorly investigated. To address this i...

‘Nebbiolo’ (Vitis vinifera L.) is renowned for its use in producing monovarietal high-quality red wines, such Barolo and Barbaresco. The fight against fraud to safeguard high-quality productions requires an effective varietal identification system applicable in musts and wines. ‘Nebbiolo’-specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identif...

Plants are exposed every day to multiple environmental cues, and tight transcriptome reprogramming is necessary to control the balance between responses to stress and processes of plant growth. In this context, the silencing phenomena mediated by small RNAs can drive transcriptional and epigenetic regulatory modifications, in turn shaping plant dev...

Europe is the world largest grape producer, but in recent years, the report of diseases due to infection by grapevine trunk pathogens (GTPs) is becoming one of the main constraints for viticulture. Among grapevine trunk diseases (GTDs), esca syndrome is one of the most complex, characterized by simultaneous infection of several fungi, which lead to...

Micro(mi)RNAs play crucial roles in plant developmental processes and in defense responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. In the last years, many works on small RNAs in grapevine (Vitis spp.) were published, and several conserved and putative novel grapevine-specific miRNAs were identified. In order to reorganize the high quantity of available dat...

Plant virus infections are often difficult to characterize as they result from a complex molecular and physiological interplay between a pathogen and its host. In this study, the impact of the phloem‐limited grapevine virus B (GVB) on the Vitis vinifera L. wine‐red cultivar Albarossa was analyzed under field conditions. Trials were carried out over...

Grapevine somatic embryogenesis is a precious tool in breeding programs as well as in functional genomics studies, embryo tissues being the best sources for regeneration of genetically modified plants. It has also been proposed as a strategy aimed at induction of somaclonal variation, separation of periclinal chimeras, cryopreservation, virus eradi...

Many viral suppressors (VSRs) counteract antiviral RNA silencing, a central component of the plant’s immune response by sequestration of virus-derived antiviral small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). Here, we addressed how VSRs affect the activities of cellular microRNAs (miRNAs) during a viral infection by characterizing the interactions of two unrelate...

'Nebbiolo' (Vitis vinifera) is among the most ancient and prestigious wine grape varieties characterised by a wide genetic variability exhibited by a high number of clones (vegetatively propagated lines of selected mother plants). However, limited information is available for this cultivar at the molecular and genomic levels. The whole-genomes of t...

Ozone, a powerful oxidative stressor, has been recently used in wine industry as sanitizing agent to reduce spoilage microflora on grapes. In this study, we evaluated ozone-induced metabolic and molecular responses during postharvest grape dehydration. Ozone increased the contents of total volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which have a great impac...

Epigenetics describes phenomena associated with changes in gene expression that occur without apparent modification in genomic sequence. In plants, it explains at least in part phenotypic differences between genetically identical plants under environmental stimuli. In this manuscript, we describe and discuss studies carried out by the scientific co...

Rootstocks are among the main factors that influence grape development as well as fruit and wine composition. In this work, rootstock/scion interactions were studied using transcriptomic and metabolic approaches on leaves of the “Gaglioppo” variety, grafted onto 13 different rootstocks growing in the same vineyard. The whole leaf transcriptome of “...

The family of Wuschel-related Homeobox (WOX) genes is a class of transcription factors involved in the early stages of embryogenesis and organ development in plants. Some of these genes have shown different transcription levels in embryogenic tissues and mature organs in two different cultivars of Vitis vinifera: ?Chardonnay? (CH) and ?Cabernet Sau...

A multidisciplinary approach, involving eco-physiological, morphometric, biochemical and molecular analyses, has been used to study the impact of two different AM fungi, i.e. Funneliformis mosseae and Rhizophagus intraradices, on tomato response to water stress. Overall, results show that AM symbiosis positively affects the tolerance to drought in...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, which form symbioses with the roots of the most important crop species, are usually considered bio-fertilizers, whose exploitation could represent a promising avenue for the development in the future of a more sustainable next-generation agriculture. The best understood function in symbiosis is an improvement in p...

Hydraulic capacitance in a plant tissue (C) buffers the xylem tension, storing and releasing water and has been highlighted in recent years as an important factor that affects water relations such as drought tolerance and embolism formation. Aquaporins are well known to control leaf hydraulic resistance (Rh) but their role in the control of C is un...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate the post-transcriptional control of several pathway intermediates, thus playing pivotal roles in plant growth, development and response to biotic and abiotic stresses. In recent years, the grapevine genome release, small(s)-RNAseq and degradome-RNAseq together has allowed the discovery and...