Capturing Diversity at the Metabolic Level in Root and Leaf of Sweet Potato

Sweet potato (Ipomeas batatas) is an important source of dietary acquired nutrients. These attributes combined with its low resource input make sweet potato an important crop to address food security in developing countries. In order to capture the biochemical diveristy in Sweet potato a representative diversity panel has been subjected to metabolomic analysis. The diversity panel used encompasses the genetic diversity found in this crop species. The chemotyping approach used LC-MS in both targeted and untargeted modes, the latter delivering approx 7,000 variables, GC-MS metabolite profiling and targeted LC-PDA analysis. Collectively, these data provide a good representation of the metabolome present in Sweet potato. The approaches have been used to (i) assess the biochemical diversity in this crop species and (ii) compared the specilised metabolism existing in the tuber material in comparison to the vegetative tissues. The chemotyping of the diversity revealed the most striking feature to be the formation of colour in the roots.. The occurence of these secondary metabolites could be correlated with changes in metabolites associated with intermediary metabolism (e.g. TCA cycle). Furthermore, the metabolite analysis distinguished yellow and orange varietes on the basis of metabolites associated with the consumer traits such as texture and taste. In conclusion the metabolomic data acquired can add value to existing and future breeding programs for improved consumer and agronomic traits.