Autophagy-based improvement of productivity, quality and resilience in potato

Potato is the world’s most important non-cereal staple crop and a major source of starch for industrial food and non-food applications.

To fully realize its potential for food security and a sustainable bio-based economy, potato varieties need to be adapted to maximize yield and nutrient use efficiencies, and minimize post-harvest losses and environmental impacts.

However, conventional breeding efforts will fall short, particularly in light of the newly emerging pattern and severity of abiotic stresses and diseases in a changing climate. Hence, novel and innovative strategies are needed to meet the urgent demand for multi-trait improvement in potato.

This project builds on the concept that productivity, quality, and resilience of potato can be boosted by the targeted modulation of autophagy, a major intracellular degradation and recycling system.

We therefore seek to generate allelic variants of autophagy-related genes and regulators for reduced or enhanced autophagy levels in commercial potato cultivars.

Established biochemical and cell biological methods for monitoring autophagy activity will be adapted for potato to validate the gene-edited lines and study autophagy processes during growth and development as well as stress responses.

A detailed phenotypic, metabolic, and molecular characterization of the autophagy-modulated potato variants will reveal the impact on agronomic parameters and serve future efforts for multiple trait development in potato breeding programs.