The historical role of species from the Solanaceae plant family in genetic research

Abstract

Key message This article evaluates the main contributions of tomato, tobacco, petunia, potato, pepper and eggplant to classical and molecular plant genetics and genomics since the beginning of the twentieth century. AbstractSpecies from the Solanaceae family form integral parts of human civilizations as food sources and drugs since thousands of years, and, more recently, as ornamentals. Some Solanaceous species were subjects of classical and molecular genetic research over the last 100 years. The tomato was one of the principal models in twentieth century classical genetics and a pacemaker of genome analysis in plants including molecular linkage maps, positional cloning of disease resistance genes and quantitative trait loci (QTL). Besides that, tomato is the model for the genetics of fruit development and composition. Tobacco was the major model used to establish the principals and methods of plant somatic cell genetics including in vitro propagation of cells and tissues, totipotency of somatic cells, doubled haploid production and genetic transformation. Petunia was a model for elucidating the biochemical and genetic basis of flower color and development. The cultivated potato is the economically most important Solanaceous plant and ranks third after wheat and rice as one of the world’s great food crops. Potato is the model for studying the genetic basis of tuber development. Molecular genetics and genomics of potato, in particular association genetics, made valuable contributions to the genetic dissection of complex agronomic traits and the development of diagnostic markers for breeding applications. Pepper and eggplant are horticultural crops of worldwide relevance. Genetic and genomic research in pepper and eggplant mostly followed the tomato model. Comparative genome analysis of tomato, potato, pepper and eggplant contributed to the understanding of plant genome evolution.

Performance of a Set of Eggplant (Solanum melongena) Lines With Introgressions From Its Wild Relative S. incanum Under Open Field and Screenhouse Conditions and Detection of QTLs

“…Eggplant (Solanum melongena L., Solanaceae; 2n = 2x = 24) ranks fifth among all vegetables and second, after tomato, among Solanaceae vegetables in global production [1]. However, despite its importance, still few genetic and genomic studies have been performed in eggplant [2,3]. In fact, even though the first draft of the genome was released in 2014, indicating a genome size of 1.13 Gb [4], just last year the first high-quality chromosome-anchored reference genome with an estimated genome size of 1.21 Gb [5] and the first resequencing study [6] were made available for the eggplant-breeding community.…”

Genomewide identification of genes involved in the potato response to drought indicates functional evolutionary conservation with Arabidopsis plants

“…These potato cultivars differ in their bulking time, growth rate and sensitivity to pathogens and various abiotic stresses. Many classical and molecular studies have been performed to identify the genetic loci responsible for agricultural traits using diploid potato plants (Anithakumari et al ., , ; Gebhardt, ; Khan et al ., ; Mani and Hannachi, ). Recently, due to the development of high‐throughput RNA sequencing techniques, which enable qualitative and quantitative global analyses of gene expression, novel approaches have been proposed to understand many physiological and agronomical traits in crop plants (Chen et al ., ; Gramazio et al ., ; Prince et al., ; Shankar et al ., ; Wang et al ., ; Zhang et al ., ,b).…”

The Morphogenic Potential of Siberian Potato Cultivars in Tissue Cultures

“…Семейство Пасленовые (Solanacea L.), к которому наря-ду с такими модельными объектами, как табак и петуния, относится картофель, обладает высоким морфогенным потенциалом в культуре in vitro (Gebhardt, 2016). У сортов культурного вида картофеля S. tuberosum L. получены растения-регенеранты практически из всех органов: из черешков листа (Yee et al, 2001), листовых пластинок (Andersson et al, 2003;Banerjee et al, 2006), стеблевых эксплантов (Kaur et al, 2017), клубневых дисков (Vasquez, Clarence, 2002), протопластов (Ehsanpour, Jones, 2001;Craig et al, 2005).…”