Solanum pimpinellifolium has high breeding potential for fruit quality traits and has been used as a donor in tomato breeding programs. Unlocking the genetic potential of S. pimpinellifolium requires high-throughput polymorphism identification protocols for QTL mapping and introgression of favourable alleles into cultivated tomato by both positive and background selection. In this study we identified SNP loci using a genotyping by sequencing (GBS) approach in an IBL mapping population derived from the cross between a high yielding fresh market tomato and S. pimpinellifolium (LA1589) as the recurrent and donor parents, respectively. A total of 120,983,088 reads were generated by the Illumina HiSeq next-generation sequencing platform. From these reads 448,539 sequence tags were generated. A majority of the sequence tags (84.4%) were uniquely aligned to the tomato genome. A total of 3.125 unique SNP loci were identified as a result of tag alignment to the genome assembly and were used in QTL analysis of 11 fruit quality traits. As a result, 37 QTLs were identified. S. pimpinellifolium contributed favourable alleles for 16 QTLs (43.2%), thus confirming the high breeding potential of this wild species. The present work introduced a set of SNPs at sufficiently high density for QTL mapping in populations derived from S. pimpinellifolium (LA1589). Moreover, this study demonstrated the high efficiency of the GBS approach for SNP identification, genotyping and QTL mapping in an interspecific tomato population.

Fruits is a scientific journal for original articles and reviews on fruit crops in temperate, Mediterranean, subtropical and tropical regions

Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease with three main clinical manifestations. This disease is caused by protozoan parasites that are transmitted through the bite of female sandflies. Each year, more than one million cases of leishmaniasis are reported, and over one billion people are at risk of contacting the disease. Leishmaniasis is a complex disease that relapses when the immune system is suppressed. The currently available antileishmanial drugs have serious side effects. Therefore, it is important to identify novel drug candidates for leishmaniasis treatment. Phytochemicals are promising drug candidates because of their wide chemical diversity and bioavailability. This chapter provides an overview of leishmaniasis and highlights the phytochemicals that can be used to treat the disease.