Decreased amount of reducing sugars in transgenic potato tubers and its influence on yield characteristics

Abstract

This work focuses on the comparison of field characteristics and amounts of reducing sugars in cold-stored tubers of transgenic plants derived from two potato cultivars. The bacterial gene coding for phosphofructokinase under the tuber-specific promoter was used to support the glycolysis in stored tubers. While the tubers from untransformed control plants steadily accumulated reducing sugars during cold storage, the tubers from transformed plants regardless the genotype were characterized by subsequent decrease in the sugar content. After long period of cold storage the greatest reduction in the reducing sugar content was by more than 60% compared to control. Before the storage, however, the content of reducing sugars was in 80% of transgenic lines higher than in control ones. The plants evaluated in field trials for their appearance showed any changes in growth characteristics in about 25% of the transgenic lines. Despite the introduced modification of sugar metabolism the yield of transgenic plants with normal appearance did not differ significantly from the yield of control plants. © 2007 Institute of Experimental Botany, ASCR.