Regeneration of Solanum tuberosum Plants from Protoplasts Induces Widespread Genome Instability

Nontransgenic genome editing in regenerable protoplasts, plant cells free of their cell wall, could revolutionize crop improvement because it reduces regulatory and technical complexity. However, plant tissue culture is known to engender frequent unwanted variation, termed somaclonal variation. To e...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plant physiology (Bethesda) 2019-05, Vol.180 (1), p.78-86
Main Authors: Fossi, Michelle, Amundson, Kirk, Kuppu, Sundaram, Britt, Anne, Comai, Luca
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Gene Editing
Genomic Instability
Protoplasts - physiology
Regeneration
Research Report
Solanum tuberosum - genetics
Solanum tuberosum - physiology
Transformation, Genetic
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Nontransgenic genome editing in regenerable protoplasts, plant cells free of their cell wall, could revolutionize crop improvement because it reduces regulatory and technical complexity. However, plant tissue culture is known to engender frequent unwanted variation, termed somaclonal variation. To evaluate the contribution of large-scale genome instability to this phenomenon, we analyzed potatoes ( ) regenerated from either protoplasts or stem explants for copy number changes by comparison of Illumina read depth. Whereas a control set of eight plants that had been propagated by cuttings displayed no changes, all 15 protoplast regenerants tested were affected by aneuploidy or structural chromosomal changes. Certain chromosomes displayed segmental deletions and duplications ranging from one to many. Resampling different leaves of the same plant found differences in three regenerants, indicating frequent persistence of instability. By comparison, 33 regenerants from stem explants used for -mediated transformation displayed less frequent but still considerable (18%) large-scale copy number changes. Repetition of certain instability patterns suggested greater susceptibility in specific genomic sites. These results indicate that tissue culture, depending on the protocol used, can induce genomic instability resulting in large-scale changes likely to compromise final plant phenotype.
ISSN:0032-0889
1532-2548
DOI:10.1104/pp.18.00906