Spudman July/August 2022 - 20
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
Why decoding the genome matters
R
By Melanie Epp
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
esearchers from the Ludwig
Maximilian University of Munich
and the Max Planck Institute for
Plant Breeding Research in Cologne,
Germany, have completely deciphered
the highly complex genome of the
potato for the first time. Complete
sequencing of the potato's genetic
material could open doors in terms of
breeding better varieties.
Potato breeding is not a
straightforward endeavour. What makes
it so complicated is that potatoes are
tetraploids, which means each plant
inherits a copy of every one of both its
mother's and father's chromosomes.
The resulting plant has four copies
of each chromosome; its genome
comprises more than 39,000
protein-coding genes. Not only does
this make breeding challenging,
but it also made reconstructing the
potato genome particularly difficult.
It was, in fact, more challenging than
reconstructing the human genome.
To tackle this challenge, Korbinian
Schneeberger, geneticist at LudwigMaximilians-Universität
München
in Germany, his colleague Hequan
Sun and their coworkers sequenced
the DNA of a number of individual
pollen cells. They found this to be
the easier route since each pollen cell
contains just two random copies of
each chromosome.
Using this information, breeders
were able to identify which genes
are responsible for individual traits,
including those both desirable and
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undesirable. The approach also allows
for gene isolation, which means
molecular geneticists can use candidate
genes for trait gene discovery - the
process by which breeders identify which
genes contribute to the development of
a trait or phenotype. But perhaps most
importantly, this new methodology
shortens the time it takes to breed new
varieties and helps to reduce the overall
cost of breeding new varieties.
" Building on this work, we can now
implement genome-assisted breeding of
new potato varieties that will be more
productive and also resistant to climate
change, " said Schneeberger. " This could
have a huge impact on delivering food
security in the decades to come. "
The potato is a staple in many diets
around the world, and while efforts
to boost yield and resiliency have
been made, little improvement has
been made over the years. The Irish
potato famine of the 1840s is a good
example of what can happen when
disease strikes a crop that shows very
little diversity. But it takes, on average,
10-12 years to bring each new variety
to market, as breeders can only make
one selection per year. There is also
a high risk of tuber-borne disease
transmission at each selection stage.
In fact, breeders say it takes beyond
the fourth field year to reliably assess
tuber yield performance. This is because
of an extremely low multiplication
rate of less than 15 tubers per plant.
The first years are, for the most part,
dedicated to tuber production for the
purpose of testing. Until now, there
was nothing breeders could do to speed
up that process.
The benefits of completely sequencing
the potato's genetic material are many.
Not only will it accelerate the breeding
of more robust varieties, enhancing
global food security, but it will help
to diversify the staple crop, making it
less susceptible to disease pressure. In
the US, diseases of note include: late
blight, common scab, silver scurf and
rhizoctonia, potato virus Y (PVY), potato
mop-top virus (PMTV) and zebra chip.
Breeders are looking for more
than resistance to disease, though. In
potatoes for processing, for instance,
they're breeding for starch content,
friability, color, taste and length. For the
fresh market, breeders look for taste,
skin, color and consumer appeal when
developing new cultivars.
Agronomically speaking, most
breeders are looking for high-yielding,
high quality, stable varieties that
are resilient to pests and climatic
variation. Resilience under extreme
weather conditions will be particularly
important as climate change continues
to throw curveballs in producers' paths.
In the Oregon and Northwest potato
industry, the traits of importance
are: low solids, early maturity, bruise
resistance, disease and pest tolerance,
superior taste, long-term storage,
high yields and long dormancy.
The main objective of the Oregon
Potato Breeding Program is to develop
new russet potatoes for the fresh
market and processing industry. In
particular, they're looking to develop
varieties with increased tolerance to
soilborne pathogens.
Similarly, the Colorado Potato
Breeding and Selection Program's
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