Researchers from China and Germany have completely deciphered the potato genome for the first time, TASS reports. This helped them unravel the evolutionary history of this plant and highlight key DNA regions associated with growth and disease resistance. Information about this was published by the press service of the German Institute for Plant Breeding (IPZ).
“Sequencing the potato genome will allow us to launch high-performance breeding programs that will create new varieties that are high-yielding yet resistant to global warming, which will be critical in the coming decades,” said IPZ Professor Korbinian Schneeberger.
Many fungal and bacterial diseases interfere with potato cultivation, as well as various pests such as the Colorado potato beetle and nematodes. Scientists and breeders are trying to fight them by creating new varieties of conventional and genetically modified potatoes.
Professor Schneeberger and his colleagues have come up with a potential solution to this problem in a massive project aimed at completely sequencing the potato genome. In the past, scientists have already tried to obtain this information, but this was hindered by the extremely complex structure of the potato genome - it consists of four identical sets of chromosomes containing a large number of repeats.
New DNA sequencing technologies and algorithms for analyzing genetic information helped German and Chinese geneticists solve this problem for the Otava variety. To decipher the genome, scientists collected a large number of pollen grains, whose genetic material contains only two, not four copies of the chromosomes.
This approach greatly simplified the task, but at the same time it required the decoding of a very large number of DNA fragments and their subsequent combination using computer algorithms. Ultimately, the scientists obtained a virtual copy of the complete potato genome, which consists of approximately 3,1 billion genetic "letters" - nucleotides and contains over 38 genes.
Subsequent analysis of their structure revealed the complex evolutionary history of the potato. Scientists have found that this culture has relatively recently survived the doubling of the genome as a result of inbreeding. In addition, the scientists uncovered unusual differences in the level of activity of copies of the same genes located on different chromosomes, potentially affecting the efficiency of crossing different potato varieties.
This information, scientists hope, will help develop new varieties or modify the genome in such a way that potatoes will grow faster, better resist late blight and other diseases, and will also be less susceptible to various stress factors.