Researchers from Japan's Kazusa DNA Research Institute and National
Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) Institute of Vegetable and
Tea Science (NIVTS) report for the first time the completed genome sequence
of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.).

Clustering analysis of the predicted genes of eggplant along with the genes
of three other solanaceous plants as well as Arabidopsis thaliana revealed
that, of the 35,000 clusters generated, 4,018 were exclusively composed of
eggplant genes that would perhaps confer eggplant-specific traits, they
said. They also found that between eggplant and tomato, 16, 573 pairs of
genes were deduced to be orthologous (homologous sequences descended from
the same ancestral sequence), and 9,489 eggplant scaffolds could be mapped
onto the tomato genome.

"The detailed comparative analysis of the eggplant and tomato genomes will
facilitate our understanding of the genomic architecture of solanaceous
plants, which will contribute to cultivation and further utilization of
these crops," said the researchers.

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