Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is a worldwide cultivated vegetable crop from the Solanaceae family whose berries are an important component of human's daily diet and are rich in health-related compounds. As it happens with many domesticates, this species is sensitive to many abiotic stresses including drought, extreme temperatures, salinity, and soil toxicity due to heavy metals, which make tackling the worsening environmental conditions provoked by the upcoming climate changes more challenging. The natural diversity available in cultivated eggplant for agroclimatic adaptation is wide but still poorly explored. Moreover, many wild allied relatives of this crop may play key role as source of traits for adaptation to adverse conditions. To this purpose, the identification of sources of tolerance to the main stresses is a first step for conventional or marker-assisted breeding for these traits. Indeed, throughout the last decades, multiple screenings involving both intraspecific and interspecific genetic resources have been performed, thus paving the way to the selection of varieties with a greater degree of tolerance to the most important abiotic stresses. The recent availability of completely anchored and annotated genome sequences of eggplant provided an opportunity for carrying on comparative analysis at the transcriptome level in eggplant. Great efforts have been focused in elucidating the molecular pathways and gene expression networks affected in eggplant and some wild relatives under different abiotic stresses. In the present chapter, the description of the main abiotic stresses affecting eggplant, as well as of the available genetic resources exploitable as source of adaptation traits to adverse conditions are reported. Furthermore, an up-to-date inventory of the employment of allied and wild relatives in breeding programs carried out in the last decades aimed at improving the crop's adaptability to adverse conditions is described. Finally, the identification of QTLs and genes underlying traits of interest, the genomics efforts carried out within the species are comprehensively discussed, as well as their usefulness in acquiring deeper knowledge of the genetic, physiological and biochemical mechanisms involved in tolerance to abiotic stresses.
Next generation breeding for abiotic stress resistance in eggplant
Barchi L.;
2022-01-01
Abstract
Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is a worldwide cultivated vegetable crop from the Solanaceae family whose berries are an important component of human's daily diet and are rich in health-related compounds. As it happens with many domesticates, this species is sensitive to many abiotic stresses including drought, extreme temperatures, salinity, and soil toxicity due to heavy metals, which make tackling the worsening environmental conditions provoked by the upcoming climate changes more challenging. The natural diversity available in cultivated eggplant for agroclimatic adaptation is wide but still poorly explored. Moreover, many wild allied relatives of this crop may play key role as source of traits for adaptation to adverse conditions. To this purpose, the identification of sources of tolerance to the main stresses is a first step for conventional or marker-assisted breeding for these traits. Indeed, throughout the last decades, multiple screenings involving both intraspecific and interspecific genetic resources have been performed, thus paving the way to the selection of varieties with a greater degree of tolerance to the most important abiotic stresses. The recent availability of completely anchored and annotated genome sequences of eggplant provided an opportunity for carrying on comparative analysis at the transcriptome level in eggplant. Great efforts have been focused in elucidating the molecular pathways and gene expression networks affected in eggplant and some wild relatives under different abiotic stresses. In the present chapter, the description of the main abiotic stresses affecting eggplant, as well as of the available genetic resources exploitable as source of adaptation traits to adverse conditions are reported. Furthermore, an up-to-date inventory of the employment of allied and wild relatives in breeding programs carried out in the last decades aimed at improving the crop's adaptability to adverse conditions is described. Finally, the identification of QTLs and genes underlying traits of interest, the genomics efforts carried out within the species are comprehensively discussed, as well as their usefulness in acquiring deeper knowledge of the genetic, physiological and biochemical mechanisms involved in tolerance to abiotic stresses.
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