
Potato Gene Engineering Research Should
Benefit Andes FarmersBy Marcia
Wood November 15, 1999New potato genes built by
scientists at the Agricultural Research
Service might boost the health of subsistence farm families in villages
throughout the Andes mountains. The Andean region of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador
is the ancestral home of the potato, America's most popular vegetable. ARS scientists hope to improve the nutritional value of Andean potatoes by
blocking natural but bitter compounds called glycoalkaloids. Some Andean
communities use a processing technique to remove the glycoalkaloids, but it
also removes proteins and vitamins as well. ARS scientists manipulated the potato's own genes to help block formation of
a key glycoalkaloid. In experiments using potato plants with the rebuilt genes,
they reduced glycoalkaloid levels up to about 40 percent in preliminary field
tests and up to 60 percent in greenhouse tests. Efforts will continue to
further reduce the levels. ARS plant physiologist William R. Belknap leads the
project at the agency's Western Regional
Research Center, Albany, Calif. American potato growers and breeders should also benefit from this
biotechnology research. It may enable them to use insect- or disease-resistant
traits from native tubers that would today be removed from breeding programs
because of high glycoalkaloid levels. Some Andean spuds are primitive but are
frost-tolerant. They may have other traits that could broaden the biological
diversity and quality of potatoes in tuber-breeding programs for the Andean
region and the U.S. ARS, the USDA's chief research agency,
has a patent for the anti-glycoalkaloid techniques and has licensed the
technology to Small Potatoes, Inc., of Madison, Wis. Company president Peter J.
Joyce has agreed to provide the technology to developing countries in the
Andean region. After learning about the research, the
International Potato Centerin La Molina, Peru, contacted Belknap to arrange to test the new genes there.
The experiments are part of the potato center's on-going research with
gene-engineered potatoes, begun more than a decade ago. The research complies
with Peru's biosafety regulations and is closely monitored by the Peruvian
Ministry of Agriculture. International Potato Center molecular biologist Carmen
M. Herrera Gutierrez recently completed a 5-week stint with the ARS scientific
team in Albany. Scientific contact: William R.
Belknap, Crop
Improvement and Utilization Research Unit, ARS Western Regional Research
Center, 800 Buchanan St., Albany, CA 94710, phone (510) 559-6072, fax (510)
559-5777, [email protected]. U.S. Department of Agriculture | |