Initiatives on Potato Functional Genetics

MASSA GABRIELA ALEJANDRA; FEINGOLD SERGIO ENRIQUE; NORERO NATALIA SIGRID; LORENZEN JIM

The Americas Journal of Plant Science and Biotechnology

Global Science Book

Año: 2010 vol. 4 p. 79 - 89

1752-3877

Invited Review: Potato is the third most important food crop worldwide. The identification of genes or chromosome regions responsible for agronomic traits had been extensively attempt in the past 20 years, mainly for disease resistance and tuber traits. Despite the success of these studies, only few discoveries were incorporated to plant breeding programs or used in surveying germplasm. With the forthcoming complete genome sequence of potato we envisaged that gene identification and in vivo functionality will be dramatically increased, given the availability of genetic sequences of potato and tools to assess gene function. Assisted breeding based on markers derived from these genes will be in an ideal situation where cross-over cannot occur between the marker and the gene responsible for the trait. Moreover, genetic diversity of germplasm banks can be assessed in terms of allelic variability of important genes. In this review, we present some of the studies carried out for potato functional genetics, and our contribution in the development of tools for transient silencing. The lessons learned from functional studies can also be applied to other Solanaceae such as tomato, eggplant, petunia, tobacco and pepper, which present a high level of synteny with potato.