Mining genes related to anthocyanin synthesis and regulation in different potato varieties based on comparative transcriptomics

The anthocyanin glycosides in potato tubers not only give potato bright color and high nutritional value, but also have pharmacological effects such as antioxidant, blood pressure-lowering, lipid-lowering and immunity-boosting. However, the overall expression pattern of genes involved in anthocyanin synthesis or regulation in potato tubers remains unclear. In this study, the anthocyanin content of four potato varieties (B, R, Y and W)was measured and the regulatory genes of anthocyanin synthesis in different potato cultivars were identified by comparative transcriptomic approaches. The results showed that a total of 82.6 G of filtered data were obtained from the 12 sequencing libraries, of which 82.23–87.66% of clean fragments were covered to the reference genome. A total of 42,793 genes were found in the 12 libraries, of which 3765 were novel genes. Finally, through strict threshold screening, three groups of 3638 (B), 4295 (R) and 3594 (Y) DEGs were obtained(FDR < 0.05 and |log 2 FC|>1), respectively. GO analysis showed that DEGs were mainly enriched in cell (GO: 0005623), metabolic process (GO: 0008152), catalytic activity (GO: 0003824) and other entries. KEGG analysis revealed that the DEGs were significantly enriched in metabolic pathways (ko01100), phenylalanine metabolism (ko00360), photosynthesis (ko00195). In addition, some anthocyanin synthesis genes (e.g. CHS, bHLH and MYB) were highly induced or repressed in different cultivars. This study provided a theoretical basis for the study ofthe regulatory genes of anthocyanin formation in potato and a scientific reference for breeding high-quality potato cultivars.