Abstract
Recently, the importance of DNA markers has been heightened further by its usefulness in breeding new agricultural cultivars. In this study, we tried to identify DNA markers for the breeding of parthenocarpic eggplant by AFLP analysis; smpc77 (primer combination [EcoRI-AGG, MseI-CTG], fragment size 168 bp) was selected as a DNA marker concerned with parthenocarpy in eggplant. The mean value of fruit number of doubled haploid (DH) lines showing this marker was significantly greater than the value shown by other cultivars. Ninety-five per cent of DH lines without smpc77 had no fruit or a low number of fruit, and were not practical for eggplant cultivation. These results indicate that smpc77 is a useful marker for the breeding of parthenocarpic eggplant.
