Scientists at The James Hutton Institute identify key factor regulating potato tuber initiation

詹姆斯-赫顿研究所的科学家确定了调控马铃薯块茎萌发的关键因素

关键词：

来源：

The James Hutton Institute

来源地址：

https://www.hutton.ac.uk/scientists-at-the-james-hutton-institute-identify-key-factor-regulating-potato-tuber-initiation/

资源所属：

马铃薯基因组设计育种

类型：

前沿资讯

语种：

英语

原文发布日期：

2025-06-25

摘要：

Potato tuberisation begins when signals from leaves are translocated to underground stems known as stolons, causing a transition from stolon extension to tuber development. The transition from stolon growth to tuber development requires a massive increase in the availability of sugars.  25 years ago, Hutton scientists demonstrated that this transition was associated with a shift in the way sugars were unloaded from the phloem into the developing tuber. The research found that a member of the germin family of proteins, is key. Dr Hancock explained, “Our work showed that one of these genes was directly activated by the protein complex that regulates the switch from stolon growth to tuber development. “Germins are a large class of proteins that have ill-defined functions so their role in tuberisation was unexpected.” Artificial manipulation of the activity of the germin3 gene showed an earlier date of tuberisation and an increase in tuber yield, as well as robust growth, early flowering and vigorous tuber sprouting.  The gene activation was increased by starving plants through keeping them in the dark, while providing sugars in the growth medium had the opposite effect, suggesting that increased sugar demand at the onset of tuberisation might result in the activation of germin3. Further research showed that having the germin3 protein in cells allowed them to move to adjacent cells, indicating that germin3 promotes potato tuberisation by facilitating the opening of pores, allowing an influx of sugars for tuber bulking. This discovery potentially solves the 25-year-old mystery of how the transition from transferring sugars using specific transporters to transferring the sugars directly with the phloem, which massively increases the capacity for sugar delivery, occurs. Because germin3 acts downstream of leaf tuberisation signals, which are temperature sensitive, this finding presents an opportunity for developing potato cultivars that are able to form tubers at higher temperatures. By-passing temperature sensitivity in this way could be a route to food security if potatoes are able to grow in areas of the world in which they currently can’t survive. Dr Mark Taylor, who initiated the work but has now retired said, “These experiments suggest that germins regulate not only tuberisation but also other plant developmental processes such as flowering and dormancy providing opportunities to manipulate multiple aspects of development and paving the way for yield increases in a wide range of crops.”