Abstract

Potato is an important part of the traditional Norwegian diet, and the crop faces several challenges with respect to pests and diseases, as well as the increasingly challenging changes in climate. Genome editing may provide tools to improve the resilience of Norwegian potato cultivars to new climate challenges. We have altered the skin colour of two potato cultivars, 'Desiree' and 'Nansen' from red to yellow, as a proof-of-concept for the use of CRISPR/Cas9 in a Norwegian cultivar. Our method has involved the use of protoplasts and we have grown the regenerants for three successive clonal tuber generations to evaluate the stability of the edited plants over time and under varying temperature conditions in contained rooms in a greenhouse. We found that the protoplast method is well suited to achieving CRISPR/Cas9 applications. The results show that the yellow skin is consistent over the three generations of tuber propagation. We found some suspected somaclonal variation in the protoplast regenerants. Some of the variation which we observed under high temperatures (up to nearly 40oC) during the second growth cycle, disappeared when cultivated under lower temperatures in the third cultivation cycle.

Keywords

Gene editing; CRISPR; Potato; Protoplasts; Skin colour; Successive tuber generations

Published in

Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture
2024, Volume: 157, number: 2, article number: 25
Publisher: SPRINGER

SLU Authors

• Andersson, Mariette

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-024-02743-3

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/129416