Review of recent transgenic studies on abiotic stress tolerance and future molecular breeding in potato

Abstract

Global warming has become a major issue within the last decade. Traditional breeding programs for potato have focused on increasing productivity and quality and disease resistance, thus, modern cultivars have limited tolerance of abiotic stresses. The introgression of abiotic stress tolerance into modern cultivars is essential work for the future. Recently, many studies have investigated abiotic stress using transgenic techniques. This manuscript focuses on the study of abiotic stress, in particular drought, salinity and low temperature, during this century. Dividing studies into these three stress categories for this review was difficult. Thus, based on the study title and the transgene property, transgenic studies were classified into five categories in this review; oxidative scavengers, transcriptional factors, and above three abiotic categories. The review focuses on studies that investigate confer of stress tolerance and the identification of responsible factors, including wild relatives. From a practical application perspective, further evaluation of transgenic potato with abiotic stress tolerance is required. Although potato plants, including wild species, have a large potential for abiotic stress tolerance, exploration of the factors responsible for conferring this tolerance is still developing. Molecular breeding, including genetic engineering and conventional breeding using DNA markers, is expected to develop in the future.

Keywords: drought; gene engineering technique; low temperature; potato (Solanum tuberosum L.); salinity.

Fig. 1

Seedling growth under drought conditions. Seeds were placed on 1/2 MS solid medium, and cultured at 25°C for 35 days (16L/8D). C indicates control conditions; D indicates drought stress conditions with 4% mannitol. All control plants grew well in control conditions, while their growth was inhibited under drought conditions. Three seeds did not germinate under drought conditions. All plants of the wild species germinated in both conditions, but wild plants grew slower than control plants. However, wild seedlings exhibited better growth under drought conditions than control seedlings.