Description

Solanum aethiopicum, the bitter tomato, Ethiopian eggplant, or nakati, is a fruiting plant of the genus Solanum mainly found in Asia and Tropical Africa. It is also known as Ethiopian nightshade, garden eggs, pumpkin-on-a-stick, and mock tomato. It is a popular vegetable in north-east India, and is known as khamen akhaba in Manipuri and samṭawk in Mizo. They are called Titay bii or simply bii in Darjeeling, Sikkim and Nepal and are relished with meat, particularly pork. These names are a result of its varied morphology, with ripe fruit often looking like a cross between an eggplant and a tomato, which are also from Solanum. In fact, the Ethiopian eggplant was so much confused with the ordinary eggplant that this was considered by some a variety violaceum of S. aethiopicum.

Ethiopian eggplant may have originated from the domestication of Solanum anguivi. The scarlet eggplant, also known as Gilo or jiló, was long held to be a distinct species (S. gilo) but is nowadays generally considered to be a cultivar group of S. aethiopicum.

Ethiopian eggplant has been used as a source of disease resistance genes for several commercially grown Solanaceae crops, including Solanum melongena (eggplant). A lack of genomic resources has meant that breeding has lagged behind other vegetables, although a 1.02-Gb draft genome has been sequenced by BGI, with single-nucleotide polymorphisms identified for use by breeders.

Whole Genomes

Whole Genome Sequences & Annotations for Solanum aethiopicum

• Solanum aethiopicum

S genes

Solanum aethiopicum S genes

Query	Scaffold	Size(bp)	Coordinates	BLASTn Hit	BLASTn %ID	Domain
SLF18	scaffold141504_cov61	1637287	1394419-1395519	Solanum tuberosum DM8.1 SLF18	86.6	F-box domain
SLF19	scaffold149241_cov62	1425273	999715-1000830	Solanum tuberosum DM8.1 SLF19	89.9	F-box domain
SLF15	scaffold149356_cov63	2300088	790925-792190	Solanum tuberosum DM8.1 SLF15	84.5	F-box domain
SLF16	scaffold149356_cov63	2300088	2077817-2076645	Solanum tuberosum DM8.1 SLF16	87.5	F-box domain
SLF23ψ	scaffold150928_cov63	230831	9914-8757	Solanum lycopersicoides KU960925.1, SLF23	84.4	-
SLF11ψ	scaffold150938_cov63	702656	443047-444222	Solanum tuberosum DM8.1 SLF11	87.4	-

Downloads

The Solanum aethiopicum S gene sequences are available in FASTA format.

CDS and Protein (FASTA file)

S-gene_Solanum_aethiopicum

Publications

Song B, Song Y, Fu Y, Kizito EB, Kamenya SN, Kabod PN, Liu H, Muthemba S, Kariba R, Njuguna J, Maina S, Stomeo F, Djikeng A, Hendre PS, Chen X, Chen W, Li X, Sun W, Wang S, Cheng S, Muchugi A, Jamnadass R, Shapiro HY, Van Deynze A, Yang H, Wang J, Xu X, Odeny DA, Liu X. Draft genome sequence of Solanum aethiopicum provides insights into disease resistance, drought tolerance, and the evolution of the genome. Gigascience. 2019 Oct 1;8(10):giz115. doi: 10.1093/gigascience/giz115.