A number of reports at the international conference "Genetics, genomics, bioinformatics and plant biotechnology" (PlantGen2021), held in Novosibirsk, were devoted to new ways of protecting this crop from various threats and risks.
Guzel Burkhanova (Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences) spoke about the methods of inducing potato resistance to viruses using the endophytic bacteria Bacillus. The first tests carried out during the study showed that after the treatment of the plant with a suspension of bacterial cells, the content of viral RNA in it decreased and the activity of a number of protective proteins and enzymes increased. Since the use of different bacterial strains gives a different effect in relation to certain types of viruses infecting potato plants, the speaker noted that the creation of composite preparations for combating viral infections would be optimal.
One of the modern methods of certification of crop varieties is SSR genotyping. With its help, informative molecular markers are isolated, which allow one to obtain an individual characteristic of a variety or genotype, the so-called. DNA profile. The presence of this profile allows further breeding work to be carried out more quickly and purposefully. Dilyara Gritsenko (Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, Almaty, Kazakhstan) presented at the conference the results of SSR profiling of pathogen-resistant potato varieties. Of course, this study was carried out with an emphasis on varieties of Kazakhstani selection, oriented to the market of this country. But the experience itself, obtained during its implementation, has a more universal character and may well be used by other scientists, including Russian ones.
The threats to potatoes are not limited to diseases and pests. It is known that when exposed to low temperatures (usually during storage of the harvested crop), potatoes acquire a sweet taste that few people like. This process is called cold saccharification, when simple sugars such as glucose are formed from starch. During further heat treatment of tubers, for example, during the preparation of chips, French fries, these sugars react with amino acids, which causes a darkening and already bitter taste, further reducing the consumer characteristics of root crops.
Traditional methods of prevention of cold saccharification usually come down to special equipment of storage areas, they entail additional costs and do not always help. Anastasia Egorova (Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS, Novosibirsk) showed in her report how modern genetic technologies help to solve this problem.
“We used two strategies. The first is "turning off" the gene that triggers the conversion of sucrose into glucose and fructose. Experiments show that this significantly reduces the intensity of cold saccharification in plants. And now we are carrying out similar work with popular Russian varieties of potatoes. The second strategy is to introduce into breeding wild potato species that are already resistant to saccharification, ”she said.
The main problem for the implementation of the second strategy is the high content of steroidal glycoalkaloids toxic to humans in the roots of such wild varieties. However, scientists have identified a candidate gene responsible for the accumulation of these glycoalkaloids, and now they intend to “turn it off”, while maintaining the plant's resistance to saccharification.
As the researcher notes, these are parallel strategies, and in the future, in case of successful completion of work in both directions, breeders will receive two methods of creating varieties resistant to cold saccharification at once.