Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

January 14-18, 2006
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Analysis Of ESTs From Cold-Stored And Reconditioned Potato Tubers

Xiu-Qing Li¹ , Rebecca Griffiths² , Martin Lagüe¹ , David DeKoeyer¹ , Charlotte Rothwell² , Muhammad Haroon¹ , Birt Stevens¹ , Changai Xu¹ , Gefu Wang-Pruski³ , Vicki Gustafson² , Barry Flinn⁴ , Sharon Regan⁵

¹  Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Potato Research Centre, P.O. Box 20280, 850 Lincoln Road, Fredericton, New Brunswick, E3B 4Z7, Canada

²  Genome Atlantic, 921 College Hill Road, Fredericton, New Brunswick, E3B 6Z9, Canada

³  Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Department of Plant and Animal Sciences, 50 Pictou Road, Truro, Nova Scotia, B2N 5E3, Canada

⁴  Institute for Sustainable and Renewable Resources, 150 Slayton Ave., Danville, VA, USA 24540

⁵  Queen’s University, Department of Biology, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

Potato tubers are often stored under cold temperature for months before being processed or consumed. However, cold storage induces sugar accumulation and consequently causes browning of chips and French fries during frying. This process is called low temperature sweetening. Therefore, after cold storage, tubers for making chips and French fries usually need a conditioning stage at warm temperature for a number of days to reduce sugar content. Although there are excellent studies at molecular biology and physiology levels on cold stored tubers, the genome level gene expression profile of cold stored tubers and reconditioned tubers is still largely unknown. In this study, we treated potato tubers under different temperatures and established cDNA libraries from both cold stored and reconditioned tubers, as part of the Canadian Potato Genome Project (www.cpgp.ca). Approximately six thousand ESTs were generated from each library. Sequences from both libraries will be contrasted and compared each other and with sequences from potatoes under other storage conditions. Specific analysis of candidate genes involved in the carbohydrate metabolism pathways will be highlighted. This study profiled the gene expression activity and may provide insights into the metabolic regulation related to tuber processing quality in cold stored and reconditioned tubers.