The historical role of species from the Solanaceae plant family in genetic research.

Christiane Gebhardt

doi:10.1007/s00122-016-2804-1

Abstract

Key message This article evaluates the main contributions of tomato, tobacco, petunia, potato, pepper and eggplant to classical and molecular plant genetics and genomics since the beginning of the twentieth century. Species from the Solanaceae family form integral parts of human civilizations as food sources and drugs since thousands of years, and, more recently, as ornamentals. Some Solanaceous species were subjects of classical and molecular genetic research over the last 100 years. The tomato was one of the principal models in twentieth century classical genetics and a pacemaker of genome analysis in plants including molecular linkage maps, positional cloning of disease resistance genes and quantitative trait loci (QTL). Besides that, tomato is the model for the genetics of fruit development and composition. Tobacco was the major model used to establish the principals and methods of plant somatic cell genetics including in vitro propagation of cells and tissues, totipotency of somatic cells, doubled haploid production and genetic transformation. Petunia was a model for elucidating the biochemical and genetic basis of flower color and development. The cultivated potato is the economically most important Solanaceous plant and ranks third after wheat and rice as one of the world’s great food crops. Potato is the model for studying the genetic basis of tuber development. Molecular genetics and genomics of potato, in particular association genetics, made valuable contributions to the genetic dissection of complex agronomic traits and the development of diagnostic markers for breeding applications. Pepper and eggplant are horticultural crops of worldwide relevance. Genetic and genomic research in pepper and eggplant mostly followed the tomato model. Comparative genome analysis of tomato, potato, pepper and eggplant contributed to the understanding of plant genome evolution.

Highlights

The Solanaceae family comprises 3000–4000 species that are classified in approximately 90 genera
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, when the new-borne scientific discipline of genetics began to unfold, tomato, potato, pepper, petunia and eggplant were among the first plant species subjected to Mendelian studies
Tobacco was the principal model in plant somatic cell genetics, which culminated between 1975 and 1985 in the Agrobacterium tumefaciensmediated, stable transformation of tobacco cells with foreign genes and the regeneration of fertile transgenic plants

Summary

Introduction

The Solanaceae family comprises 3000–4000 species that are classified in approximately 90 genera. A number of association mapping experiments were performed using various types of DNA-based markers including SNPs, either derived from candidate genes or genome-wide distributed, which discovered further associations with quantitative resistance to late blight and other complex traits such as plant maturity, tuber starch content, yield, starch yield, chip color and enzymatic discoloration, reviewed by (Gebhardt et al 2014), (Mosquera et al 2016; Schönhals et al 2016), see Bernardo (2016) in this issue. In the following 20 years, several molecular maps were built in different genetic backgrounds and with various types of DNA markers These maps formed the basis for the linkage mapping of numerous qualitative and quantitative horticultural traits such as fruit characters (size, shape, weight, color, carotenoid, anthocyan and capsaicinoid content, pendant/erect fruit habit), disease resistance (resistance to viruses, bacteria, nematodes and the oomycete Phytophthora capsici), and male sterility, comprehensively reviewed by (Ramchiary et al 2014). A draft genome sequence of the typical Asian eggplant cultivar ‘Nakate-Shinkuro’ was published recently (Hirakawa et al 2014)

Conclusions and perspectives

Compliance with ethical standards