Biotechnology of eggplant

Eggplant and its cultivated or wild relatives, cover a wide range of Solanum species (subgenu L. septostemonum) originating from Asia and Africa. The most widely cultivated species is S. melongena L. Other species are cultivated in Africa such as the scarlet eggplant (S. aethiopicum L.) and the gboma eggplant (S. macrocarpon L.). Eggplant (S. melongena L.), with a world production of around 9 million metric tons, is an economically very important solanaceous crop in Asia and the Mediterranean basin. A list of transformation methods, genes of interest and targeted agricultural traits is given in Table 10.2.