Abstract

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a predominant food security crop in several developing countries. Its storage roots, rich in carbohydrate, are deficient in essential micronutrients, including provitamin A carotenoids.Increasing carotenoid content in cassava storage roots is important to reduce the incidence of vitamin A deficiency, a public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. However, cassava improvement advances slowly, mainly due to limited information on the molecular factors influencing 13-carotene accumulation in cassava.To address this problem, we performed comparative transcriptomic and untargeted metabolic analyses of roots and leaves of eleven African cassava landraces ranging from white to deep yellow colour, to uncover regulators of carotenoid biosynthesis and accumulation with conserved function in yellow cassava roots.Sequence analysis confirmed the presence of a mutation, known to influence 13-carotene content, in PSY transcripts of deep yellow but not of pale yellow genotypes. We identified genes and metabolites with expression and accumulation levels significantly associated with 13-carotene content. Particularly an increased activity of the abscisic acid catabolism pathway together with a reduced amount of L-carnitine, may be related to the carot-enoid pathway flux, higher in yellow than in white storage roots. In fact, NCED_3.1 was specifically expressed at a lower level in all yellow genotypes suggesting that it could be a potential target for increasing carotenoid accumulation in cassava.These results expand the knowledge on metabolite compositions and molecular mechanisms influencing carotenoid biosynthesis and accumulation in cassava and provide novel information for biotechnological ap-plications and genetic improvement of cassava with high nutritional values.

Keywords

Cassava; Carotenoids; Transcriptome; Metabolites; NCED; provitamin A; psy

Published in

Plant Physiology and Biochemistry
2023, Volume: 199, article number: 107713
Publisher: ELSEVIER FRANCE-EDITIONS SCIENTIFIQUES MEDICALES ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

• Olayide, Priscilla Olukola

  • Department of Plant Protection Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

• Alexandersson, Erik

  • Department of Plant Protection Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Lenman, Marit

  • Department of Plant Protection Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture


UKÄ Subject classification

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Botany


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphy.2023.107713

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/122420