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Aubergine (eggplant) is susceptible to fungal wilts caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. melongenae (Fom) and Verticillium dahliae (Vd). Wild and allied relatives represent a good source of resistance, and introgression lines (ILs) have been obtained through introgression of the Rfo-sa1 locus conferring resistance to Fusarium oxysporum from Solanum aethiopicum into cultivated aubergine. In this work, a deep phenotype characterization was performed according to two parameters: progression of symptoms along the stem and disease severity in leaves. This analysis showed that the Fom-resistant ILs carrying introgression of the Rfo-sa1 locus displayed significantly improved tolerance to Verticillium attack after a preliminary inoculation with F. oxysporum. This positive effect was particularly evident when Verticillium inoculation was performed simultaneously or after Fusarium inoculation. Transcript profiling carried out using a combination of suppression subtractive hybridization ( SSH), microarray and qRT-PCR analyses of roots inoculated with selected combinations of fungal pathogens enabled the identification of 164 differentially expressed genes between inoculated and uninoculated plants or between different stages after pathogen infection. Overall, the results highlighted a number of candidate genes putatively involved in early defence responses or signalling pathways activated upon infection of aubergine with either Fom and/or Vd, and thus leading to a broad Rfo-sa1-mediated tolerance against both these wilt pathogens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endogenous housekeeping genes are traditionally employed to normalize the expression of target genes in RT-qPCR studies. Assuming that a perfect housekeeping suitable for every condition does not exist, expression stability of the chosen reference gene should be evaluated at every new experiment. The housekeeping selection process reveals furthermore complicated and time-consuming when different conditions have to be compared in the same experimental dataset. As an alternative strategy, we spiked an external reference transcript (ERT) into all RNA samples of our dataset (eggplant roots subjected to different biotic stresses), and used it to normalize the expression levels of native candidate housekeeping. ERT expression resulted highly stable across all samples and enabled to indicate glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) as the most stable endogenous housekeeping. This result was confirmed by the use of GeNorm, Normfinder, and BestKeeper algorithms. This method might be generally applied to expedite the selection process of the best reference gene.

In spite of its widespread cultivation and nutritional and economic importance, the eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) genome has not been extensively explored. A lack of knowledge of the patterns of inheritance of key agronomic traits has hindered the exploitation of marker technologies to accelerate its genetic improvement. An already established F2 intraspecific population of eggplant bred from the cross '305E40' x '67/3' was phenotyped for 20 agronomically relevant traits at two sites. Up to seven quantitative trait loci (QTL) per trait were identified and the percentage of the phenotypic variance (PV) explained per QTL ranged from 4 to 93%. Not all the QTL were detectable at both sites, but for each trait at least one major QTL (PV explained ≥ 10%) was identified. Although no detectable QTL x environment interaction was found, some QTL identified were location-specific. Many of the fruit-related QTL clustered within specific chromosomal regions, reflecting either linkage and/or pleiotropy. Evidence for putative tomato orthologous QTL/genes was obtained for several of the eggplant QTL. Information regarding the inheritance of key agronomic traits was obtained. Some of the QTL, along with their respective linked markers, may be useful in the context of marker-assisted breeding.

Both inter- and intra-specific maps have been developed in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.). The former benefit from an enhanced frequency of marker polymorphism, but their relevance to marker-assisted crop breeding is limited. Combining the restriction-site associated DNA strategy with high throughput sequencing has facilitated the discovery of a large number of functional single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers discriminating between the two eggplant mapping population parental lines '305E40' and '67/3'. A set of 347 de novo SNPs, together with 84 anchoring markers, were applied to the F(2) mapping population bred from the cross '305E40' x '67/3' to construct a linkage map. In all, 415 of the 431 markers were assembled into twelve major and one minor linkage group, spanning 1,390 cM, and the inclusion of established markers allowed each linkage group to be assigned to one of the 12 eggplant chromosomes. The map was then used to discover the genetic basis of seven traits associated with anthocyanin content. Each of the traits proved to be controlled by between one and six quantitative trait loci (QTL), of which at least one was a major QTL. Exploitation of syntenic relationships between the eggplant and tomato genomes facilitated the identification of potential candidate genes for the eggplant QTLs related to anthocyanin accumulation. The intra-specific linkage map should have utility for elucidating the genetic basis of other phenotypic traits in eggplant.