Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas L): a Versatile Raw Material for the Food Industry

Abstract Sweet potato (SP) starchy roots have a broad range of colors, high-quality nutritional composition including bioactive substances (anthocyanins and β-carotene), vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and starch. Several studies report the versatility of this root crop as part of the human diet and its possible health benefits. In this review the SP chemical composition, nutritional properties and its potential use in food processing for developing nutritious and healthy products are explored. Due to the adaptation of sweet potatoes to several agricultural managing conditions, accepting low technology /low cost with reasonable performance, it has called attention as a strong candidate of accessible functional food market.

A customized nuclear target enrichment approach for developing a phylogenomic baseline for Dioscorea yams (Dioscoreaceae).

PREMISE: We developed a target enrichment panel for phylogenomic studies of Dioscorea, an economically important genus with incompletely resolved relationships. METHODS: Our bait panel comprises 260 low- to single-copy nuclear genes targeted to work in Dioscorea, assessed here using a preliminary taxon sampling that includes both distantly and closely related taxa, including several yam crops and potential crop wild relatives. We applied coalescent-based and maximum likelihood phylogenomic inference approaches to the pilot taxon set, incorporating new and published transcriptome data from additional species. RESULTS: The custom panel retrieved ~94% of targets and >80% of full gene length from 88% and 68% of samples, respectively. It has minimal gene overlap with existing panels designed for angiosperm-wide studies and generally recovers longer and more variable targets. Pilot phylogenomic analyses consistently resolve most deep and recent relationships with strong support across analyses and point to revised relationships between the crop species D. alata and candidate crop wild relatives. DISCUSSION: Our customized panel reliably retrieves targeted loci from Dioscorea, is informative for resolving relationships in denser samplings, and is suitable for refining our understanding of the independent origins of cultivated yam species; the panel likely has broader promise for phylogenomic studies across Dioscoreales.

Characterization of microsatellites in Xanthosoma sagittifolium (Araceae) and cross-amplification in related species.

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: To investigate the genetic diversity of a root crop, Xanthosoma sagittifolium, and to facilitate germplasm conservation, microsatellite loci were developed and characterized by genotyping 39 accessions from different geographic origins. • METHODS AND RESULTS: Using a microsatellite-enriched library approach, 17 polymorphic microsatellite markers were identified and characterized. The number of alleles for each locus ranged from two to six. Observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.00 to 0.97 and from 0.09 to 0.78, respectively. Additionally, cross-amplification of these microsatellite markers was tested successfully in other species of Xanthosoma and Caladium, with rates varying from 23.5% to 100%. • CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate the effectiveness of microsatellite loci developed for the characterization of X. sagittifolium genetic diversity. They are crucial for the future investigation of population dynamics and clonal identification and, therefore, for prioritizing germplasm conservation. They should also enable research on other related species.