Approaches for developing molecular markers associated with virus resistances in potato (Solanum tuberosum)

Potato, (Solanum tuberosum), is one of the most common and important food sources for humans. It is not only essential as a food source but also has many benefits for human health. Potato is ranked as the world's third non-cereal crop after rice and wheat. Biotic stress, such as viruses, is a common stress in potato-growing areas, leading to reduced tuber yield and quality. This review begins with a description of resistance mechanisms to viruses, historical perspective on potato improvement for virus resistance based on classic and next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques. Classical breeding has been exploited for improving virus resistant potato. In recent years, plant breeding has quickly changed from phenotypic selection to genotype selection, facilitating the selection process both in terms of time and accuracy. The next-generation sequencing techniques have valuable potential to study the genotype selection through whole-genome re-sequencing (WGRS) and genome-wide association study (GWAS), and RNA-seq has been used to identify markers in virus-resistance potato, facilitating potato breeding for virus resistance. Identification of molecular markers based on new generation sequencing methods and in particular NGS along with bioinformatics tools has facilitated the identification of related markers. The objectives of this review were to better understand virus resistance genes and to recommend the most effective technique and/ or combination approaches for identification of molecular markers in order to breed potato plants resistant to viruses.