Annika Reimer (Universität Rostock)
Annika Reimer's Master thesis was awarded with the Prize for the Best Plant Science Master Thesis, which was carried out at Universität Rostock in the year 2025 with the title:
Characterization of the drought-stress-associated gene FATA in Solanum tuberosum
This study uncovers how a key gene associated with drought stress in potato offers crucial insights into enhancing water-deficit tolerance, and how its complex haplotypes reveal unexpectedly promising avenues for breeding climate-resilient varieties.
The potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), as the world’s fourth most important food crop, plays a crucial role in global food security. However, its cultivation is increasingly threatened by progressively longer and more frequent drought periods, highlighting the need for sustainable strategies to enhance potato resilience to rising water scarcity. A central approach involves the development of markers associated with improved drought resistance, enabling the breeding of crop varieties capable of withstanding changing climatic conditions. Among the relevant genes is StFATA, which plays a key role in fatty acid biosynthesis and is thus closely linked to cuticle formation. This connection to protection against non-stomatal water loss makes StFATA an important target for the development of adaptive strategies. To better understand the gene’s impact on potato metabolism, various haplotypes were characterized in the cultivars Albatros and Désirée, and a CRISPR/Cas construct was generated and applied for genome editing. Analysis of the allelic StFATA variants provided insights into the transcript complexity arising from chimeric mRNAs and the resulting potential for fusion of different haplotype protein domains. The amino acid sequences of the haplotypes further indicated that the corresponding secondary structures segregate into two distinct isoforms, likely differing in function. In vitro cultivation also allowed the regeneration of potential StFATA mutants from tuber tissue, which could serve as a foundation for in-depth analysis of gene function in potato. Overall, these investigations provide an important basis for understanding StFATA and its relevance to the future development of drought-tolerant potato plants.
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Annika Reimer conducted this work at the Institute of Biosciences in the working group of Prof. Dr. Renate Horn.
