Atmospheric methane levels increased over geological formations in Northern Siberia following a heat wave in 2020, suggesting that permafrost thaw releases methane from reservoirs.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Edited by Esther van der Knaap, University of Georgia, and accepted by Editorial Board Member June B. Nasrallah October 5, 2017 (received for review August 21, 2017)
Significance
Worldwide, potato is the third most important crop grown for direct human consumption, but breeders have struggled to produce new varieties that outperform those released over a century ago, as evidenced by the most widely grown North American cultivar (Russet Burbank) released in 1876. Despite its importance, potato genetic diversity at the whole-genome level remains largely unexplored. Analysis of cultivated potato and its wild relatives using modern genomics approaches can provide insight into the genomic diversity of extant germplasm, reveal historic introgressions and hybridization events, and identify genes targeted during domestication that control variance for agricultural traits, all critical information to address food security in 21st century agriculture.
Abstract
Cultivated potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.), domesticated from wild Solanum species native to the Andes of southern Peru, possess a diverse gene pool representing more than 100 tuber-bearing relatives (Solanum section Petota). A diversity panel of wild species, landraces, and cultivars was sequenced to assess genetic variation within tuber-bearing Solanum and the impact of domestication on genome diversity and identify key loci selected for cultivation in North and South America. Sequence diversity of diploid and tetraploid S. tuberosum exceeded any crop resequencing study to date, in part due to expanded wild introgressions following polyploidy that captured alleles outside of their geographic origin. We identified 2,622 genes as under selection, with only 14–16% shared by North American and Andean cultivars, showing that a limited gene set drove early improvement of cultivated potato, while adaptation of upland (S. tuberosum group Andigena) and lowland (S. tuberosum groups Chilotanum and Tuberosum) populations targeted distinct loci. Signatures of selection were uncovered in genes controlling carbohydrate metabolism, glycoalkaloid biosynthesis, the shikimate pathway, the cell cycle, and circadian rhythm. Reduced sexual fertility that accompanied the shift to asexual reproduction in cultivars was reflected by signatures of selection in genes regulating pollen development/gametogenesis. Exploration of haplotype diversity at potato’s maturity locus (StCDF1) revealed introgression of truncated alleles from wild species, particularly S. microdontum in long-day–adapted cultivars. This study uncovers a historic role of wild Solanum species in the diversification of long-day–adapted tetraploid potatoes, showing that extant natural populations represent an essential source of untapped adaptive potential.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: buell{at}msu.edu.
Author contributions: M.A.H., D.S.D., and C.R.B. designed research; M.A.H., L.N., E.C., K.W.-R., J.C.W., E.M.F., and C.R.B. performed research; M.A.H., F.P.E.L., E.C., J.P.H., B.V., E.M.F., R.E.V., and C.R.B. analyzed data; and M.A.H., F.P.E.L., E.M.F., R.E.V., and C.R.B. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. E.v.d.K. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.
Data deposition: The data reported in this paper have been deposited in the BioProject database (ID PRJNA378971).
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1714380114/-/DCSupplemental.
- Copyright © 2017 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Potato domestication study
Article Classifications
- Biological Sciences
- Plant Biology
See related content:
Sign up for Article Alerts
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
Pottery, burnt clay, and burnt flint from Jordan dated from 7752 BCE to 5069 BCE yielded a record of variations in Earth’s magnetic field strength during the Neolithic period.
Image credit: Thomas E. Levy.
Mechanics of ant tunneling could inspire the development of improved robotic mining techniques.
Image credit: Jose E. Andrade and David R. Miller (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA).
When it comes to potential geoengineering initiatives, researchers and policymakers need to know what to study—and when to stop.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Venera Salman.
The gasdermin protein family has unexpectedly ancient origins.
Image credit: Alex Johnson.