| Summary: | Cadmium (Cd) contamination is a severe problem in the environment and produces detrimental effects on crop productivity and quality. Characterization of crop performance at different Cd concentrations is crucial to identify pollution-safe cultivars with low translocation efficiency to aboveground organs to be used for food safety. Here, we estimated germination, survival, growth, photosynthetic pigments, Cd bioaccumulation, among-organs translocation, and ionic balance in six <i>Solanum melongena</i> L. (eggplant) cultivars from the central Mediterranean basin. On two cultivars, we also analyzed expression of genes involved in Cd uptake, i.e., heavy metal ATPases (<i>HMA</i>s) and metal tolerance proteins (<i>MTP</i>s). We found that Cd has a negative effect on all the investigated parameters but with relevant among-cultivar differences. Cd-treated plants showed a decrease in germination rate and survival. Photosynthetic pigments showed opposite trends, i.e., with increasing Cd contents, we observed a decrease in chlorophylls and an increase in carotenoids. The investigated cultivars showed high ability of sequestrating Cd in roots but a low translocation efficiency to the aboveground organs, suggesting a good potential for food safety. The response of plants to Cd was mediated by a different expression of the <i>MTP</i> and <i>HMA</i> gene families. Our study represents the first comprehensive investigation of Cd tolerance in eggplant varieties from the Mediterranean basin and highlights the importance of comparative studies to identify Cd-tolerant cultivars.
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