Application of EST-SSRs to examine genetic diversity in eggplant and its close relatives

Within the genus Solanum, the term 'eggplant' encompasses several cultivated species that are used for food and, to a lesser extent, for medicine. The use of one common name to describe more than one species and the existence of many related wild species have led to taxonomic confusion which, in turn, have complicated analyses of evolutionary relationships and genetic diversity within this groups of species. A further challenge for eggplant research is that, despite the fact that the use of molecular markers for phylogenetic studies is well-established, very few studies have described the development of new markers for eggplant. In our work, genic microsatellite (SSR) marker; were identified from an expressed sequence tag library of S. melongena and used for analysis of 47 accessions of eggplant and closely related species. The markers had very good polymorphism in the 18 species tested including 8 S. melongena accessions. Moreover, genetic analysis performed with these markers showed concordance with previous research and knowledge of eggplant domestication. These markers are expected to be a valuable resource for studies of genetic relationships, fingerprinting, and gene mapping in eggplant.