A sneaky bag of chips may be a guilty pleasure no longer, as scientists have figured out how to make your favorite potato snack much better for your health.
New varieties of potato may soon be developed that can be stored at much colder temperatures than they are now, according to a new paper in the journal The Plant Cell.
This breakthrough discovery is hoped to lead to healthier chips and fries, the researchers say.
"This discovery represents a significant advancement in our understanding of potato development and its implications for food quality and health," paper co-author Jiming Jiang, a professor of plant genetics at Michigan State University, said in a statement. "It has the potential to affect every single bag of potato chips around the world."
Potatoes cannot be grown year-round, meaning that they must be stored between harvests to allow for the constant manufacture of potato products like chips. Storing potatoes in the cold keeps them fresh, but also triggers a process known as cold-induced sweetening, or CIS, causing the starches in the potatoes to be converted to sugars.
If potatoes containing too much sugar are cooked and processed, they can lead to darker-colored fries and chips, which may also contain acrylamide. Acrylamide is a likely carcinogen and has been linked to an increased risk of some cancers.
Previous methods to remove the sugars from these potatoes are expensive and add a strange flavor to the products. Now, however, the researchers have developed potatoes that don't undergo CIS in colder temperatures at all.
"We've identified the specific gene responsible for CIS and, more importantly, we've uncovered the regulatory element that switches it on under cold temperatures," explained Jiang.
"By studying how this gene turns on and off, we open up the possibility of developing potatoes that are naturally resistant to CIS and, therefore, will not produce toxic compounds."
The gene for CIS was identified in 2010 by Jiang and his team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They have since worked at Michigan State University to modify this gene to prevent CIS from occurring. Now, using a combination of gene expression analysis, protein identification and enhancer mapping, they have identified a molecule that regulates and controls the CIS gene: potato vacuolar invertase.
Knocking out the genes that create the molecules that influence the CIS gene will allow for potatoes to be grown without undergoing CIS in the cold.
"With our collaboration, we were able to produce a finding that paves the way for targeted genetic modification approaches to create cold-resistant potato varieties," David Douches, lead of the MSU Potato Breeding and Genetics Program, said in the statement.
This would mean that acrylamide won't be produced during the processing of these potatoes, leading to chips and fries being healthier. These cold-resistant potatoes could also allow for more effective storage and transportation, potentially reducing food waste and costs.
The researchers hope that potatoes that are resistant to the cold will soon be available commercially.
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