Abstract:

In recent years, the world witnessed the rapid development of plant transformation technology. Genetically modified cultivars from soybean, maize, oilseed rape, and cotton have been widely grown and provided enormous economic and social benefits. Wheat is one of the major food crops for the world’s population. Since the first report of wheat transgenic plants in 1992, significant progress has been made in wheat transformation technology that provides a solid foundation for molecular breeding in wheat. Up to date, the particle bombardment and the Agrobacterium-mediated transformation remain to be the two major approaches for wheat transformation, representing 68.8% and 15.9%, respectively, among reported cases. Transgenic wheat have been applied to improve disease and insect resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, quality, and grain yield, with disease resistance (39.7%) and quality improvement (25.6%) as two major areas. In this review, the current research progress in wheat transformation technology and its application status were summarized. The existing problems in wheat transformation were discussed and the development direction in this area was proposed.

Key words: wheat')">wheat, transgenic technology, molecular breeding