In August 2023, Drs. Yoshi Hosaka and Rena Sanetomo visited the Endelman Lab following their trip to the annual meeting of the Potato Association of America. They are both professors at Obihiro University in Japan.
Dr. Hosaka was a visiting scientist at UW-Madison in the 1990’s, studying the genetics of self-compatibility in diploid potato with Professor Bob Hanneman. In 1998 they published the first genetic map of the S-locus inhibitor (Sli) gene, which has been utilized for inbred line development around the world. In 2022, Sli was finally cloned by Ma et al. (2021) and Eggers et al. (2021) and revealed to be a non-S locus F-box protein.
Graduate student Michaela Erickson has been using genetic markers published by Hosaka and Sanetomo (2012) to characterize the cytotypes of the UW-Madison breeding program, and the results have helped us avoid the male sterility associated with certain cytotypes when planning our crossing block.