Abstract
Potato production is often constrained by abiotic stresses such as drought and high temperatures which are often present in combination. In the present work, we aimed to identify key mechanisms and processes underlying single and combined abiotic stress tolerance by comparative analysis of tolerant and susceptible cultivars. Physiological data indicated that the cultivars Desiree and Unica were stress tolerant while Agria and Russett Burbank were stress susceptible. Abiotic stress caused a greater reduction of photosynthetic carbon assimilation in the susceptible cultivars which was associated with a lower leaf transpiration rate. Oxidative stress, as estimated by the accumulation of malondialdehyde was not induced by stress treatments in any of the genotypes with the exception of drought stress in Russett Burbank. Stress treatment resulted in increases in ascorbate peroxidase activity in all cultivars except Agria which increased catalase activity in response to stress. Transcript profiling highlighted a decrease in the abundance of transcripts encoding proteins associated with PSII light harvesting complex in stress tolerant cultivars. Furthermore, stress tolerant cultivars accumulated fewer transcripts encoding a type-1 metacaspase implicated in programmed cell death. Stress tolerant cultivars exhibited stronger expression of genes associated with plant growth and development, hormone metabolism and primary and secondary metabolism than stress susceptible cultivars. Metabolite profiling revealed accumulation of proline in all genotypes following drought stress that was partially suppressed in combined heat and drought. On the contrary, the sugar alcohols inositol and mannitol were strongly accumulated under heat and combined heat and drought stress while galactinol was most strongly accumulated under drought. Combined heat and drought also resulted in the accumulation of Valine, isoleucine, and lysine in all genotypes. These data indicate that single and multiple abiotic stress tolerance in potato is associated with a maintenance of CO2 assimilation and protection of PSII by a reduction of light harvesting capacity. The data further suggests that stress tolerant cultivars suppress cell death and maintain growth and development via fine tuning of hormone signaling, and primary and secondary metabolism. This study highlights potential targets for the development of stress tolerant potato cultivars.
Highlights
Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important food crops in the world where it ranks only behind rice and wheat in terms of global production (Birch et al, 2012)
Previous reports have not assessed responses to combined abiotic stress and a second objective was to determine the resistance of genotypes to combined heat and drought
In initial experiments, we chose to undertake a detailed time course of gas exchange parameters to define conditions under which genotypes would experience a moderate to severe stress. This time point was used for further biochemical, metabolomics, and transcriptional analysis in an attempt to identify genes and processes associated with abiotic stress tolerance
Summary
Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important food crops in the world where it ranks only behind rice and wheat in terms of global production (Birch et al, 2012). The crop is vulnerable to elevated temperature which results in significant reductions in tuber yields (Gregory, 1965; Slater, 1968). An estimated average temperature increase of 1– 1.4°C in current potato growing regions by 2040 is predicted to reduce global potential yield by 18 to 32% (Hijmans, 2003). Such yield reductions are in part driven by the temperature sensitivity of carbon transport to sink organs leading to reduced incorporation of assimilated carbon into starch in the tuber (Wolf et al, 1991; Hancock et al, 2014). There is wide variation for heat stress tolerance across potato germplasm that could be exploited to ensure the sustainability of yield in warmer climates (Levy and Veilleux, 2007; Trapero-Mozos et al, 2018a)
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