Faculty Affairs and Academic Programs
Imtiyaz Khanday
Life Sciences; Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences
Engineering Synthetic Apomixis for Clonal Seed Propagation in Potato
Potato, the world’s fourth most important food crop, is propagated vegetatively through tubers. Although tubers produce uniform plants, this system is inefficient: nearly 10% of harvest is wasted as propagules, seed tubers accumulate and transmit diseases - especially viruses - are costly, and difficult to store and transport. Tuber costs alone can exceed 50% of total inputs. Potatoes produce botanical seed, or True Potato Seed (TPS), which could avoid these limitations; however, TPS arises from sexual reproduction and undergoes recombination and segregation, generating genetically variable seedlings with inconsistent yield and vigor. We previously developed the first self-replicating system of synthetic apomixis in a major monocot crop, rice - a breakthrough that enables clonal seed propagation of hybrids without loss of heterozygosity across generations. This project aims to establish synthetic apomixis in potato to enable clonal propagation through TPS. The strategy combines CRISPR-Cas knockout of key meiotic genes to create the MiMe (Mitosis instead of Meiosis) genotype, producing clonal gametes, with induction of parthenogenesis via BABY BOOM expression or pollination with Phureja genotypes. The resulting clonal TPS will retain parental genetic constitution and heterozygosity, generating vigorous, uniform, and disease-free plants. Successful development of clonal seed technology will revolutionize potato breeding and enable season-independent, cost-effective, and pathogen-free propagation through seed. For an early-career investigator, it represents a high-impact, independent research direction that bridges fundamental discovery and translational innovation.
