Abstract:
Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a root crop, one of the world’s most important but under-exploited staple food crops and source of income. It is a high starch producer with levels between 73.7 and 84.9% of its total storage root dry weight. Increasingly, there is a need for diverse novel starches for both food and non-food applications. In response, sbeII encoding starch branching enzyme II was cloned. The relationship between spatial temporal expression patterns of starch synthesis genes and the plasticity of the storage root development states was examined. To gain further insight into the transcriptional activity of sbe, diurnal transcript abundances, sugar and hormone signaling were studied.