The Potato Engineering Technology Research Center of Inner Mongolia (hereafter center) was established in October 2007, relying on the foundation of Inner Mongolia University, listed by the Inner Mongolia Science and Technology Department. Basic and applied research are carried out on potato here.

      Basic research includes mining potato functional gene and molecular breeding, potato chromosome identification, the formation and development of potato tubers, interaction between potato and pathogen and potato resistance. Applied research includes the selection of fine potato breeding of new variety, quality testing of its seed, cultivation physiology of potato and integration of water and fertilizer, integrated pest management (IPM) and so on.

The Center became Pest Control Function Research Laboratory of potato industry technology system of the Ministry of Agriculture in 2008, was named as Potato Modern Agricultural Engineering Research Center of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region by the Department of Education in 2009. Potato Research Center of Inner Mongolia University-Wisconsin University was established in 2010 and Potato Water Efficient Cultivation Technology Research Center of Inner Mongolia University-Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of Chinese Academy of Science was established in the same year.

Scientific research conditions

The Center covers an area of 800 square meters, and the potato buildings（Life Science Building C), more than 6,000 square meters, are under building now.

       There are more than 360 sets of equipment which values about more than 40 million yuan, including  the frozen ball milling and mixing device, ultraviolet cross linker, phosphor screen imaging system, isotope detector, enzyme standard instrument eliasa, electric transfer instrument electroporator, near infrared analyzer, real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR instrument system and other molecular biology instruments, ultrasonic cell disrupted instrument ultrasonic cell disrupter, two-dimensional electrophoresis apparatus, transfer printing equipment, chemiluminescence gel imaging system and other protein instruments, and some cell biology instruments, such as fluorescent electric front microscope and phase contrast microscope system, which can provide researchers with technical support and services to do life research from genomics, proteomics and cell biology for life studies such as genomics, proteomics, and cell biology.

    The new type of high level instruments purchased lately including ultra-high resolution of confocal microscope, laser laminate scanning microscope and laser microdissection system provides the center with the hardware security to be one of the tops in the world.

     It can meet the needs of the laboratory of molecular biology and crop breeding research because there are sets of infrastructure in the field such as greenhouses, network rooms, seed storage, drought greenhouse, potted field, the light cultivating rooms, plant tissue cultivating rooms and standardized research laboratories.

Research Team

At present, the center has formed a professional research team including the subject leaders and the middle-aged scholars.

Zhang Ruofang, PhD, Professor, PhD supervisor, Deputy director of the center, the talent chief expert of Autonomous Region "333", the first selected one of prairie talents, the expert of disease prevention and control post of national potato industry technical system, member of the sixth State Council Academic Degrees Committee biology group.

The main research direction: （1）plant-pathogenic microbial interaction mechanism;（2）pathogenesis of late blight of potato;（3）pathogenesis and prevention and control of Potato Soil born Disease.

Presided over scientific research project:

1. Projects in the National Science & Technology Pillar Program during the Twelfth Five-year Plan Period (2012BAD06B01), Research and Integrated Demonstration of Potato Efficient Production Technology in North-China, project director.

2. National Modern Agriculture Industry Technology System (CARS-10-P09), National Potato Industry Technical System Post Expert Project, project director.

3. National Natural Science Foundation of China, Research on Expression of Specific Genes of Phytophthora Infestans Sporangium, project director.

4. National Natural Science Foundation of China, Research on dsRNA Inducing Potato Antivirus PVX, PVY, PLRV, project director.

5. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Innovation Award Fund, Research on Potatoes’ Main Disease Prevention and Integration of Water and Fertilizer, project director.

6. Application Development Project of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Research and Demonstration of Quality Production Technology of Commodity Potato in Inner Mongolia, project director.

7. Institutions Entrusted Project/Transverse Project Technology, The Construction of Potato Industry Standard System in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, project director.

Qi Jianjian, PhD, working in the center by passing “Introduction of High-level Talents” test.

The main research direction:

(1) potato genetic diversity and artificial domestication;

(2) excavation and cloning of important agronomic genes of potato;

(3) potato molecular breeding.

Presided over scientific research project: Scientific Research Foundation of Inner Mongolia University, Construction and Application of Potato Variation Map, project director.

Xiong Zhiyong, PhD, researcher, PhD supervisor

The main research direction: (1) plant cytogenetics, modern chromosome recognition technology and its application in the related fields; (2) plant polyploid formation, stability and evolution mechanism; (3) plant chromosome engineering and polyploid breeding.

Presided over scientific research project:

1. Region Project from National Natural Science Foundation of China, Construction of Potato Modern Cytogenetic System and Its Application in Related Research, project director.

2. Science and Technology Innovation Guidance and Reward Foundation of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, The Application of Modern Cytogenetics and Chromosome Engineering Technology in Potato Breeding, project director.

General Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China, Research on the Role of Heterogeneous Triploid in Polyploid Formation and Its Occurrence Regularity, project director.

General Program of National Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia, China, Research on Cultivation of Meiosis of Autotetraploid of Potatoes, project director.

Initial foundation of Inner Mongolia University, Construction of Potato Modern Cytogenetic System and Its Application in Related Research, project director.

Wu lei, PhD, lecturer, Research Supervisor.

The main research direction:

(1) molecular genetics of potato phytophthora infestans.

(2) interaction of potato and pathogenic bacteria and disease resistance mechanism.

(3) potato molecular breeding.

Presided over scientific research project:

1. National Natural Science Funds for Young Scholar, Research and Analysis on miRNA in Phytophthora infestans, project director;

2. General Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China, Research on New Potato Varieties for Low Temperature Sugar and High Quality Processing by RNA Interference Technology, project director;

3. Project Supported by Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Universities and Colleges, Construction of New Plant for Low Temperature Sugar Processing of Potato, project director;

Foundation of Inner Mongolia University, project director;

Du Miru, Doctor, instructor

The main research direction: (1) The development mechanism of potato tubers; (2)  The transmission pathway of signal metabolism of potato starch

Sun Qinghua, Master, Assistance Researcher

The main research direction: (1) The normal breeding of potato. (2) The research of comprehensive control technology of potato disease. (3) The research of technology of   efficiently using water and fertilizer of potato.

Participating Projects:

1. “12th Five-Year” national science and technology support program, 2012BAD06B01, The research and integration of efficient production technology of potato in North China, 2012.1-2016.12,13830000, research project, participating.

2. Project of Ministry of Agriculture, CARS-10-P09, the technical system of modern agricultural industry (potato), 2011.1-2015.12, 350000, research project, participating.

3. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region “The project of construction of potato industry standard system of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region”, 2015.11-2016.10, 200000, research project, participating

4. Special research of public welfare industry of Ministry of Agriculture, 200903004-38, the research on pest species and the occurrence of harmful characteristics of potato, 2009.1-2013.12800000, concluding, participating.

5. "Eleventh Five-Year" National Science and Technology Support Program, 2007BAD49B00, the research and demonstration of key technology of potato industry development of Inner Mongolia, 2007.1-2010.12, 5500000, concluding, participating.

Pu Yuanyuan, Ph.D., Instructor

Achievements in scientific research

Since its establishment, team members have published more than 30 SCI papers in high-level journals such as Nature Genetics, PNAS, Genetis and Plant Journal.

And members made technical regulation on development of potato virus - free test - tube Seedling, and technical regulation on production of commodity potato and other eight national standards and published "The Identification and Prevention of Main Potato Pest " (ISBN978-7-109-19986-6) and other 6 monographs. They completed identification of potato pests and diseases, isolation and identification of potato dry rot pathogens, rapid identification of pathogen in potato soil and other 12 new technology research in North China and accessed to new varieties of transgentic potatoes of high amylopectin and anti-low temperature saccharification, broad-spectrum resistance and many other scientific researches.

代表论文如下：

Miru Du, Ming Luo, Ruofang Zhang, E. Jean Finnegan, Anna Koltunow. 2014. Imprinting in rice: the role of DNA and histone methylation in regulating parent-of-origin specific expression and determining transcript start sites. The Plant Journal,79:232–242.

Hongfeng Lu, Tao Lin, Joël Klein, Shenhao Wang, Jianjian Qi, Qian Zhou, et al.(2014). QTL-seq identifies an early flowering QTL located near Flowering Locus FT in cucumber. Theoretical and Applied Genetics127(7): 1491-1499.

Jianjian Qi*, Xin Liu*, Di Shen*, Han Miao*, Bingyan Xie*, Xixiang Li*, et al. (2013). A genomic variation map provides insights into the genetic basis of cucumber domestication and diversity. Nature Genetics45, 1510–1515

Pu Y, Gao J, Guo Y, Zhu L, Xu P, Yi B, Wen J, Tu J, Ma C, Fu T, Zou J Shen J. (2013). A novel dominant glossy mutation causes suppression of wax biosynthesis pathway and deficiency of cuticular wax in Brassica napus. BMC plant biology, 13:215.

Lv J*, Qi J*, Shi Q*, Shen D*, Zhang S*, et al. (2012). Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). PLoS ONE7(10): e46919.

Miru Du, Xiangyu Ren, Qinghua Sun, Yi Wang & Ruofang Zhang. (2012). Characterization ofFusarium spp.Causing Potato Dry Rot in China and Susceptibility Evaluation of Chinese Potato Germplasm to the Pathogen. Potato Research, 55, 175-184.

Xiong ZY, Gaeta RT, Pires JC. (2011). Homoeologous shuffling and chromosome compensation maintain genome balance in resynthesized allopolyploid Brassica napus. Proc Natl Acad SciUSA.108:7908-7913.

Xiong, ZY, and J. C. Pires. (2011). Karyotype and identification of all homoeologous chromosomes of allopolyploid Brassica napus and its diploid progenitors. Genetics. 187: 37-49.

Lei Wu, Pudota B. Bhaskar, James S. Busse, Ruofang Zhang, Paul C. Bethke and Jiming Jiang. (2010).Developing Cold-Chipping Potato Varieties by Silencing the Vacuolar Invertase Gene. Crop Science. 51(3): 981-990

PB Bhaskar, L Wu, JS Busse, BR Whitty, AJ Hamernik, et al. (2010). Suppression of the vacuolar invertase gene prevents cold-induced sweetening in potato. Plant Physiology, 154(2):939-948.

Serve the society

The Center, based on the idea of serving society by science and technology, applies and popularizes the new technology into the production practice. The training on main pest control of potato is held to the community every year, so does the demonstration site of technology of comprehensive control pest of potatoes and efficient using water and fertilizer were held in the main planting field in order to provide potatoes unknown disease identification and prevention, control technical guidance to the growers and issue pest control Manual and other technical information materials. At the same time, the Center establishes close cooperation with the Inner Mongolia Grender, snow Sichuan agriculture, and other national leading enterprises of potato industry and works together to improve the technical level of potato industry.

Postgraduate training

The Center aims to cultivate the high-level specialized talents who master professional knowledge and basic theory of the discipline, and have innovation ability in scientific research, teaching，management and can take the responsibility of specialized technical work.

Enrollment and Employment

The center recruits postgraduates and Ph.D. students in biology, botany, microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology about 3 and 10 students enrolled respectively, but. the quota will be based on the enrollment plan announced by Inner Mongolia University

The postgraduates cultivated by the Center can take up an occupation in the following ways: being assigned to work at the alma mater , continuing their studies in foreign universities and research institutes by recommending and working in a well-known enterprises of potato production, such as Wu Lei(Doctor graduating in 2011) and Du Miru (Doctor graduating in 2014). Because of their outstanding performances at school, they were sent to the University of Wisconsin Madison and the Australian Federal Institute of Plant to further their study and work there after graduation. Wang Shumei (Master Degree), graduating in 2014, now is reading for Ph.D. in British University of Dundee.

Communication at home and abroad

The Center actively carry out domestic and foreign communication, and has established a strategic cooperative relationship with CIP, University of Wisconsin, CSIRO, James Hutton Institute, Wageningen University, Argentinean National Institute for Agricultural Research, Chilean National Institute for Agricultural Research, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Resources, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen Institute of Agricultural Genomics, Wuhan Institute of Virus Research and other domestic and foreign scientific research units.