Functional genomic analysis of potato tuber life-cycle

Potato tuber life-cycle is composed of many individual developmental stages including tuber formation, tuber development, dormancy and sprouting. We have used cDNA-AFLP fingerprinting to analyse gene expression in 24 individual stages of development, over the period from stolen formation through sprouting. In addition to these developmental stages, different tissues were analysed to assess tissue specificity and various controls were incorporated to determine process specificity. In total around 18000 transcript derived cDNA fragments (TDFs) were visualised from which circa 2600 were included in a statistical analysis allowing general conclusions about gene expression during development. More than 200 process specific TDFs were isolated and sequenced throughout the potato tuber life-cycle. The sequence similarities of these TDFs to known genes give an insight into the kinds of processes occurring during tuberisation, dormancy and sprouting.