Unlike other important Solanaceae crops such as tomato, potato, chili pepper, and tobacco, all of which originated in South America and are cultivated worldwide, eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is indigenous to the Old World and in this respect it is phylogenetically unique. To broaden our knowledge of the genomic nature of solanaceous plants further, we dissected the eggplant genome and built ...

The sweetpotato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci biotype B is extremely polyphagous with >600 species of host plants. We hypothesized that previous experience of the whitefly on a given host plant affects their host selection and performance on the plants without previous experience. We investigated the host selection for feeding and oviposition of adults and development and survival of immatures of th...

Traditional descriptors for characterization of fruit shape of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) provide limited information and do not allow a detailed characterization of this complex trait. New image analysis software tools like Tomato Analyzer, allow obtaining quantitative and objective data for a large number of fruit shape parameters. The Tomato Analyzer software tool was used for the evalu...

Eggplant, pepper, and tomato are the most exploited berry-producing vegetables within the Solanaceae family. Their genomes differ in size, but each has 12 chromosomes which have undergone rearrangements causing a redistribution of loci. The genome sequences of all three species are available but differ in coverage, assembly quality and percentage of anchorage. Determining their syntenic relatio...

Transcriptional profiling allows for the assessment and comparison of cross-species gene activity and function on a comprehensive scale. The Solanaceae is a large, diverse dicot family, with well-established genetic relationships between major crop species (tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant, and tobacco). Although Arabidopsis thaliana is often the model of choice for anchoring comparative studie...

A molecular genetic linkage map based on tomato cDNA, genomic DNA, and EST markers was constructed for eggplant, Solanum melongena. The map consists of 12 linkage groups, spans 1480 cM, and contains 233 markers. Comparison of the eggplant and tomato maps revealed conservation of large tracts of colinear markers, a common feature of genome evolution in the Solanaceae and other plant families. Ov...

Background: Enough information about the actual amount of individual phytochemicals in vegetables and the amount absorbed and utilized is not known. Objective: This study evaluated flavonoid, saponin and phenol content of aqueous extracts of tomato, fluted pumpkin and eggplant as well as the bioavailability of these phytochemicals in rat. Methods: The phytochemical content of the vegetable extr...

The behavior of the greenhouse whitefly, Trialeurodes vaporariorum Westwood (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), is known to be affected by plant volatile cues, but its attraction or repellent to specific volatile cues has not been deeply studied yet. Therefore, the aim of our study was to identify the most attractive plant among cultivars of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and eggplant (Solanum melongena) ...

Eggplant (Solanum melongena) is amenable to grafting and this technique can be exploited to improve production of this vegetable crop. Here, we study the performance of the ‘Cristal F1’ eggplant cultivar grafted onto a total of 17 rootstocks, including five families, each of which is made by two parents and their hybrid, as well a commercial eggplant rootstock and a self-grafted control. Three ...

Eggplant (Solanum melongena) is related to a large number of wild species that are a source of variation for breeding programmes, in particular for traits related to adaptation to climate change. However, wild species remain largely unexploited for eggplant breeding. Detailed phenotypic characterization of wild species and their hybrids with eggplant may allow identifying promising wild species...