AbstractCold-induced sweetening (CIS) causes a great loss to the potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) processing industry wherein selection of potato genotypes using biochemical information through marker-trait associations has found to be advantageous. In the present study, we have performed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy-based metabolite profiling on tubers from five potato cultivars (Atlantic, Frito Lay-1533, Kufri Jyoti, Kufri Pukhraj, and PU1) differing in their CIS ability and processing characteristics at harvest and after one month of cold storage at 4°C. A total of 39 water-soluble metabolites were detected using 1H NMR. Multivariate statistical analysis indicated significant differences in metabolite profiles between processing and non-processing potato cultivars. Further analysis revealed distinct metabolite perturbations as induced by cold storage in both types of cultivars wherein significantly affected metabolites were categorized mainly as sugars, sugar alcohols, amino acids, and organic acids. Significant metabolic perturbations were used to carry out metabolic pathway analysis that in turn tracked 130 genes encoding enzymes (involved directly and/or indirectly) involved in CIS pathway using potato genome sequence survey data. Based on the metabolite perturbations, the possible relevant metabolite biomarkers, significantly affected metabolic pathways, and key candidate genes responsible for the observed metabolite variation were identified. Overall, studies provided new insights in further manipulation of specific metabolites playing a crucial role in determining the cold-induced ability and processing quality of potato cultivars for improved quality traits.HighlightMetabolomic profiling using 1D 1H-NMR and bioinformatics analysis of potato cultivars for the identification of metabolites and genes controlling biochemical pathways in cold-stored potato tubers
Prospects for potato genome editing to engineer resistance against viruses and cold-induced sweetening