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Scientists to sequence the humble spud


The potato is seen by some food security experts as cheap food source for an increasingly hungry world (Source: iStockphoto)

One of the world's most important food crops is being put under the microscope, as scientists team up to sequence the genome of the potato.

While the humble white potato (Solanum tuberosum) may look simple, it is comprised of 12 chromosomes and 840 million DNA base pairs. Humans, by comparison, have 3 billion DNA base pairs.

The Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium, based in the Netherlands, includes scientists in 13 countries from New Zealand to India and Peru, who are decoding different pieces of the genome.

It plans to have its work done in 2010 and will then make its findings public so plant breeders can create new seeds resistant to everything from droughts and diseases to extreme temperatures.

"We'll be able to design seeds more effectively and more efficiently after we know precisely which genes do what," says Gisella Orjeda, a biology professor at the Cayetano Heredia University in Lima who runs a lab that is sequencing one of the chromosomes.

Once the white potato genome is sequenced, researchers say it will become easier to identify genes in native and wild species of potatoes, which come in 5000 varieties.

Hungry for potato

The potato, the world's third-most important food crop after wheat and rice, is being championed by food security experts who say it could cheaply feed an increasingly hungry world.

The United Nations named 2008 the International Year of the Potato to highlight its potential as an antidote to hunger.

Though the potato originated 8000 years ago in Peru's Andes mountains, China is now the largest grower of the tuber.

More farmers are planting it, especially in developing countries, as the world's population expands by 1 billion a decade.

Orjeda says the potato genome sequencing project could usher in a new era for the potato, which its proponents call history's most important vegetable.

"The potato isn't just important now. It has always been important - it's what enabled the Industrial Revolution in Europe (by allowing for a population boom), but also what caused the potato famine in Ireland," she says.

Tags: food-and-cooking, agricultural-crops, biotechnology, genetics