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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » Vegetable Crops Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #319409
Title: Exploring vitamin B9 diversity in potatoes: Biofortification of modern cultivars

Author
item ROBINSON, B - Oregon State University
item SATHUVALLI, V - Oregon State University
item Bamberg, John
item GOYER, A - Oregon State University

Submitted to: American Journal of Potato Research
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/30/2015
Publication Date: 7/19/2015
Citation: Robinson, B.R., Sathuvalli, V., Bamberg, J., Goyer, A. 2015. Exploring vitamin B9 diversity in potatoes: Biofortification of modern cultivars. American Journal of Potato Research. Paper No. G05.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Micronutrient malnutrition is one of the world’s largest health concerns. Folate (vitamin B9) is essential and without adequate folate intake several serious health concerns can develop. This is especially true for women of child-bearing age, pregnant women, and young people. Most people’s vitamin B9 intake remains sub-optimal even in countries that have a folic acid fortification program in place. Potatoes represent an appropriate vehicle for biofortification and increased nutritional content based on their worldwide consumption and the fact that modern cultivars only contain about 6% of the daily recommended intake of folate. This can be increased if genes from individuals with significantly higher folate content can be introgressed into modern cultivars. In this study, 775 individuals were screened for their folate content using a tri-enzyme extraction and microbial assay. This group included hybrids of high-folate Solanum tuberosum Group Phureja and S. boliviense, and 75 accessions of wild Solanum species. Our results showed a wide range of folate concentrations and identified individuals with significantly higher folate content than commercial cultivars such as Russet Burbank. Real-Time quantitative RTPCR was used to measure the expression of gamma-glutamyl hydrolase I, a folate-hydrolyzing enzyme, in low- and high-folate individuals to test its potential role as a determinant of tubers’ folate content. A high folate segregating population was developed and will be genotyped using Illumina SNP array to identify genomic regions associated with high folate for marker-trait analysis.