Recent research on enhanced resistance to parasitic nematodes in sweetpotato

Abstract

Sweetpotato yields are affected by diverse environmental factors, such as viruses, fungal diseases, and parasitic nematodes. In particular, plant-parasitic nematodes are major pathogenic factors affecting sweetpotato cultivation regionally. Sedentary endoparasitic nematodes, including root-knot nematodes and cyst nematodes, cause serious sweetpotato yield losses in northeast Asia, including South Korea, China, and Japan. In this review, we describe the current status of research on nematode resistance in sweetpotato and molecular methods for resolving these cultivation problems. Conventional breeding and molecular techniques, including genome-editing-based transgenic technology and omics-based analyses, should be combined to develop sweetpotato cultivars with improved resistance to various important nematodes.