Expression of sucrose phosphorylase in plants

Recent advances in genetic engineering have provided the requisite tools to transform plants to contain foreign genes. It is now possible to produce plants which have unique characteristics of agronomic and crop processing importance. Certainly, one such advantageous trait is enhanced starch and/or solids content and quality in various crop plants. Another is enhanced oil and protein content of seeds of various crop plants. Introducing sucrose phosphorylase activity into plants by transformation with a gene for the enzyme increases the rate of sucrose hydrolysis, leading to increased starch, oil, and protein levels. The preferred gene is from . Surprisingly, in potatoes transformed to express this gene in tubers, reduced bruise discoloration susceptibility and increased uniformity of starch deposition throughout the tuber are achieved.