Abstract
Sugar-end defect is a tuber quality disorder and persistent problem for the French fry processing industry that causes unacceptable darkening of one end of French fries. This defect appears when environmental stress during tuber growth increases post-harvest vacuolar acid invertase activity at one end of the tuber. Reducing sugars produced by invertase form dark-colored Maillard reaction products during frying. Acrylamide is another Maillard reaction product formed from reducing sugars and acrylamide consumption has raised health concerns worldwide. Vacuolar invertase gene (VInv) expression was suppressed in cultivars Russet Burbank and Ranger Russet using RNA interference to determine if this approach could control sugar-end defect formation. Acid invertase activity and reducing sugar content decreased at both ends of tubers. Sugar-end defects and acrylamide in fried potato strips were strongly reduced in multiple transgenic potato lines. Thus vacuolar invertase silencing can minimize a long-standing French fry quality problem while providing consumers with attractive products that reduce health concerns related to dietary acrylamide.
Highlights
Potato plants are subjected to a variety of biotic and abiotic stresses that impact plant health, marketable tuber yields and final tuber quality
Vacuolar invertase gene (VInv) expression at the tuber stem and bud ends of Russet Burbank silencing lines We developed a total of 53 RNAi silencing lines from Russet Burbank
The data presented here demonstrate that VInv-silencing is an effective method for reducing the frequency of sugar-end defects in processing potatoes
Summary
Potato plants are subjected to a variety of biotic and abiotic stresses that impact plant health, marketable tuber yields and final tuber quality. Poor tuber quality due to the combined effect of environmental and cultural practices in the field can be visualized in finished processed products—the French fry or potato chip [1,2,3,4,5]. Suboptimal growing years and cultural practices result in an increase in internal tuber disorders such as brown center, hollow heart, internal necrosis, vascular discoloration and sugar-end defects [6,7,8]. Finished fry products with these disorders must be discarded, constituting an economic loss to the processor. Growers absorb some of the economic burden in the form of contract penalties or rejected raw product. Consumers may be adversely affected as well, in the form of higher prices or decreased product quality
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