Abstract
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas, Lam.) is an important root vegetable in developing countries. After its domestication in Neotropical America, human migration led to the distribution of the sweet potato plant throughout the world. Both leaf and storage root are high in compounds of nutritional value. Yet, the storage roots are of particular value due to their significant content of provitamin A (β-carotene). The breeding effort for elite sweet potato lines led to the reduction of genetic diversity and the potential to improve other traits. The focus of the present study was to assess the metabolic diversity of 27 sweet potato cultivars including landraces and improved varieties. A metabolite profiling approach was optimised for sweet potato leaf and storage root tissue and 130 metabolites identified with three different analysis platforms. The data highlighted a lack of correlation between storage root phenotype and leaf metabolism. Furthermore, the metabolic diversity of storage roots was based on the secondary metabolism, including phenylpropanoids and carotenoids. Three cultivars of three different flesh colouration (yellow, orange and purple) showed a significant difference of the primary metabolism. This data demonstrates the value of metabolite profiling to breeding programs as a means of identifying differences in phenotypes/chemotypes and characterising parental material for future pre-breeding resources.
Highlights
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a herbaceous perennial vine, which produces storage roots and edible leaves and can grow on marginal lands
Metabolite composition of sweet potatoes The simple extraction method resulted in the detection of 130 identified metabolites in leaf and storage roots (Supplementary File S1)
The remaining metabolites were unique to storage root and leaf tissue independently, 47 and 17 components, respectively
Summary
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a herbaceous perennial vine, which produces storage roots and edible leaves and can grow on marginal lands. The sweet potato plants have been widely dispersed by humans throughout the world since its domestication in the New World[1,2]. Sweet potato is the sixth most important food crop after rice, wheat, potatoes, maize and cassava. In 2015, 105 million tonnes of sweet potatoes were produced worldwide and 95% thereof in developing countries with China as the lead producer[3]. Both the leaves and storage roots of sweet potato have a high nutritional value for the human diet. To starch which comprises 60% of the dry matter (DM), leaves and Drapal et al Horticulture Research (2019)6:2
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