Research Progress in the Cytogenetics of Sweetpotato and Its Wild Relatives

Cultivated sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.), a hexaploid (2n = 6x = 90) crop, is the most economically important species within the morning glory genus Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae). Fourteen diploid Ipomoea species and several polyploid accessions have been confirmed to be closely related to sweetpotato, often termed its wild relatives. These wild species harbor abundant elite genes beneficial to sweetpotato improvement and thereby serve as indispensable germplasm reservoirs for breeding programs. In addition, several wild taxa are proposed as potential ancestors of domesticated sweetpotato. Nevertheless, the evolutionary origin and genomic architecture of cultivated sweetpotato have not yet been fully resolved. Cytological investigations, particularly chromosome karyotyping and meiotic pairing analyses, have been pivotal in unravelling the genomic architecture and evolutionary trajectories of polyploid taxa. Herein, we systematically summarize advances in chromosome counting, genome size, karyotyping, and meiotic pairing research on sweetpotato and its wild relatives.