Eggplant

Abstract

Eggplant ( Solanum melongena L.) is one of the important vegetable crops cultivated in various tropical and temperate parts of the world. There is a wide genetic diversity in the cultivated as well as wild species of eggplant. Although, the cultivated eggplant varieties are susceptible to various diseases and pests as well as abiotic stresses, the wild relatives of eggplant are good source of resistance against biotic and abiotic stresses. Therefore, attempts have been made to introgress these agronomically important traits from wild species to cultivated varieties of eggplant, but with limited success. Nevertheless, eggplant is quite amenable for plant regeneration through cell and tissue culture. Haploidisation, somatic hybridization and gene transfer methods have been well established for this crop. The beneficial traits like resistance to bacterial and fungal wilts have successfully been transferred from wild species to cultivated eggplants by protoplast fusion. However, the development of molecular markers and transgenic eggplants with novel traits is in infancy. Eggplant transgenics for insect resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, and parthenocarpy have been accomplished. More work is needed in this direction to produce eggplant transgenics for other agronomic traits, including disease resistance, nematode resistance, quality and shelf‐life of fruits. Modern biotechnological tools like RNA interference (RNAi) are useful to achieve these goals. The initiation of complete genome sequencing of eggplant is required to discover several useful genes, which can be introduced into eggplant and other crop species for genetic improvement. This chapter reviews the various aspects of eggplant biology, particularly the developments in eggplant biotechnology and future projections.

Characterization of Health-Related Compounds in Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) Lines Derived from Introgression of Allied Species

“…Eggplant ( Solanum melongena L.) is one of the most cultivated vegetable crops world-wide, and it is ranked among the top six for the amount of its production . Fusarium and Verticillium spp fungal wilts, which cause high loss in production, are among its major cultivation problems . Recently, non-conventional and conventional (i.e., somatic and sexual hybridization) breeding methods enabled the introgression from allied species of tolerance and resistance traits to the diseases caused by Verticillium dahliae Kleb and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp.…”