Transcriptional profiling of starch metabolism in potato plants exposed to French marigold essential oil

Abstract

Potato fields pest protection is still predominantly based on synthetic pesticides, expensive in terms of monetary investment and proved to be harmful to human health and the environment. Alternatively, flower strips of French marigold (Tagetes patula L.) appearing as potent pest repellents in potato fields, offer well-adopted practice in organic farming. Up to now, the effect of French marigoldon potato metabolism, physiology, and yield has not been studied in detail. Thus, a microarray transcriptome analysis was performed to study the effect of French marigold essential oil (EO) on laboratory-grown potato, with the focus on starch metabolism pathway. After 8h of exposure to EO, 3840 potato probes were differentially expressed (fold change ≥2) compared to control plants, of which 1744 were upregulated and 2096 downregulated. We selected a set of putative genes involved in the starch metabolism pathway in plastids, and validated microarray patterns using RT-qPCR method. The expression of selected genes was analyzed in plants exposed to EO for 4, 8 and 12h . While the expression of genes involved in starch biosynthesis was at similar levels as in non-treated plants, the most of the genes responsible for gradual degradation of starch displayed significantly elevated expression with the highest levels detected after 8 and 12h of exposure. Our results provide a comprehensive sequence resource for studying the potato-EO interactions, revealing induced alternations in potato starch metabolism and suggesting modified regulatory mechanism in potato affected by EO.