Potatoes, the third most important staple food crop in the world
consumed by approximately 1.3 billion people, are mostly tetraploids,
carrying four copies of chromosome sets, which complicates breeding
efforts to introduce new traits. Diploid potatoes, however, are
self-incompatible with the problem of inbreeding depression.

Researchers from the Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen,
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (AGIS, CAAS) worked on
developing a hybrid potato breeding system for years. Converting the
potato from a tuber-propagated tetraploid crop into a seed-propagated
diploid crop through crossing inbred lines is crucial to address
challenges associated with global food security.

Dr. Huang Sanwen's lab at AGIS, with Yunnan Normal University,
discovered a self-compatible diploid potato, RH89-039-16 (RH), which can
efficiently induce a mating transition from self-incompatibility to
self-compatibility. The scientists identified a non-S-locus F-box
(NSF)genein RH that is identical to the Sli gene (S-locus inhibitor) and
capable of interacting with multiple allelic variants of S-RNases,
functioning as a general S-locus inhibitor to introduce SC to both RH
and other self-incompatible lines. The discovery of Sli offers a new and
effective path for the development of hybrid diploid potatoes.

Research Update_Chinese Academy Of Agricultural Sciences (caas.cn)
[www.caas.cn]