ARS | Publication request: Genomic Origins of the Cultivated Potato Species: GBSSI Sequencing Data

Submitted to: The Plant Genome
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: March 20, 2009
Publication Date: March 27, 2009
Citation: Rodriguez, F., Ghislain, M., Spooner, D.M. 2009. Genomic Origins of the Cultivated Potato Species: GBSSI Sequencing Data. The Plant Genome. 48(S1):S27-S36.

Interpretive Summary: Cultivated potatoes are highly diverse, forming four species confined entirely to the South American Andes and the lowlands of south-central Chile. One of these species, Solanum tuberosum, is the dominant species, but in the highlands of southern Peru and adjacent Bolivia grow three species technically called Solanum ahanhuiri, Solanum juzepczukii, and Solanum curtilobum. Theylikely arose as hybrids of S. tuberosum and different wild species. The present study uses data from sequencing a region of the nucleus to reexamine prior ideas of the hybrid origin of these three species. The data support all ideas of these prior ideas. The data will be useful to help design crossing strategies to incorporate wild species germplasm into cultivated potato.

Technical Abstract: Chromosome pairing relationships within cultivated potato (Solanum tuberosum) and its wild tuber-bearing relatives (Solanum sect. Petota) have been interpreted by genome formulas, developed in the early 1900s, through techniques of classic meiotic analysis of interspecific hybrids. Here we reexamine hypotheses of genome origins of all four cultivated potato species with the first phylogenetic analysis of all major genomes of sect. Petota using cloned DNA sequences of the single-copy nuclear gene GBSSI (waxy). Our results provide the first molecular support for alloploid origins of wild potato species S. ahanhuiri (a diploid species of origin from diploid clones of S. tuberosum and S. megistacrolobum), S. juzepczukii (a triploid species of origin from diploid clones of S. tuberosum and S. acaule), and S. curtilobum (a pentaploid species of origin from tetraploid clones of S. tuberosum and S. juzepczukii). The results confirm origins based on classic cytogenetic data. The data will be useful to help design crossing strategies to incorporate wild species germplasm into cultivated potato.