Molecular Pathogens, 2025, Vol.16, No.1, 36-44 http://microbescipublisher.com/index.php/mp 36 Case Study Open Access Breeding Disease-Resistant Potatoes through Molecular Tools Lin Liu, Fumin Gao Tropical Microbial Resources Research Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resources, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China Corresponding author: fumin.gao@hitar.org Molecular Pathogens, 2025, Vol.16, No.1 doi: 10.5376/mp.2025.16.0005 Received: 22 Dec, 2024 Accepted: 27 Jan., 2025 Published: 15 Feb., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Liu and Gao, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Lui L., and Gao F.M., 2025, Breeding disease-resistant potatoes through molecular tools, Molecular Pathogens, 16(1): 36-44 (doi: 10.5376/mp.2025.16.0005) Abstract Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is the fourth largest food crop in the world, but its yield is severely threatened by late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans and a variety of diseases such as potato Y virus (PVY). Traditional breeding methods are difficult to effectively solve these problems due to the genetic complexity of potatoes and the long breeding cycle. In recent years, the rapid development of molecular tools has brought breakthrough progress to potato disease-resistant breeding, achieving higher accuracy and efficiency. This paper reviews the core technologies of current potato disease-resistant molecular breeding, including marker-assisted selection (MAS), genome-wide association analysis (GWAS), genome selection (GS), and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology, which help to quickly identify and introduce disease-resistant genes. In addition, transcriptomic technologies such as proteomics, and metabolomics further reveal the molecular mechanisms of potatoes’ disease resistance, providing a scientific basis for precise breeding. Biotechnological methods such as RNA interference (RNAi) and gene transformation also provide effective strategies for addressing viral and fungal diseases. Through cases of late blight and viral disease resistance breeding, this paper demonstrates the application effectiveness of molecular tools in actual breeding. In the future, combining emerging molecular technologies, global collaboration and climate adaptability research will provide sustainable development paths for potato disease-resistant breeding, helping global food security and sustainable agricultural production. Keywords Potato breeding; Disease resistance; Molecular tools; Gene editing; Marker-assisted selection (MAS) 1 Introduction Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a very important food crop in the world. It is the fourth largest crop after corn, rice and wheat (Solomon-Blackburn and Barker, 2001; Berindean et al., 2024). Potatoes play a great role in food security and economic development, especially in developing countries, where people rely on them to obtain nutrition and income (Berindean et al., 2024). However, there are many difficulties in growing potatoes, especially disease problems. Among them, late blight is the most serious. This disease is caused by a pathogen called Phytophthora infestans (Uhrig et al., 1992; Berindean et al., 2024). It once triggered the Great Irish Famine in the 19th century and still affects global potato production (Moon et al., 2022). In addition to late blight, there are other serious diseases. For example, potato Y virus (PVY) can cause viral diseases, and root knot nematodes (such as Globodera rostochiensis and G. pallida) can also harm the roots and affect yields (Ortega and Lopez-Vizcon, 2012). To combat these diseases, scientists now use many molecular tools. These methods include marker-assisted selection (MAS), CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, and gene aggregation technologies (Carrasco et al., 2009; Barka and Lee, 2022; Moon et al., 2022). They can help find disease-resistant genes faster and more accurately, and use them in breeding to improve the disease-resistant ability of potato varieties (Gebhardt et al., 2011; Armstrong et al., 2018). This study mainly wants to see what new progress has been made in these molecular breeding technologies, and also wants to understand whether they can solve the problems encountered in traditional breeding. The goal is to make potatoes more resistant to disease, promote more sustainable production methods through these new methods, and also provide some useful directions for future breeding efforts.
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