Analysis of Stress Response Genes in Microtuberization of Potato Solanum tuberosum L.: Contributions to Osmotic and Combined Abiotic Stress Tolerance

Wild Solanum species have contributed many introgressed genes during domestication into current cultivated potatoes, enhancing their biotic and abiotic stress resistance and facilitating global expansion. Abiotic stress negatively impacts potato physiology and productivity. Understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating tuber development may help solve this global problem. We made a transcriptomic analysis of potato microtuberization under darkness, cytokinins, and osmotic stress conditions. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis identified 404 genes with high confidence. These genes were involved in important processes like oxidative stress, carbon metabolism, sterol biosynthesis, starch and sucrose metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, and nucleosome assembly. From this network, we selected nine ancestral genes along with eight additional stress-related genes. We used qPCR to analyze the expression of the selected genes under osmotic, heat-osmotic, cold-osmotic, salt-osmotic, and combined-stress conditions. The principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that 60.61% of the genes analyzed were associated with osmotic, cold-osmotic, and heat-osmotic stress. Seven out of ten introgression/domestication genes showed the highest variance in the analysis. The genes <i>H3.2</i> and <i>GAPCP1</i> were involved in osmotic, cold-osmotic, and heat-osmotic stress. Under combined-all stress, <i>TPI</i> and <i>RPL4</i> were significant, while in salt-osmotic stress conditions, <i>ENO1</i>, <i>HSP70-8</i>, and <i>PER</i> were significant. This indicates the importance of ancestral genes for potato survival during evolution. The targeted manipulation of these genes could improve combined-stress tolerance in potatoes, providing a genetic basis for enhancing crop resilience.