Genetic transformation of wheat–Present status and future potential

Abstract

Wheat is the major staple food crop of the world immediately after
rice. Since green revolution, its production has increased with the
introduction of input responsive, semi dwarf, high yielding varieties.
In the recent years, conventional breeding helped in sustaining
the yield levels but failed to provide a signifcant yield jump.
Under such circumstance genetic transformation could serve as a
useful tool for transferring target gene of interest for further crop
improvement. Transformation in wheat has been least successful
because of low transformation effciency and genotype dependency.
During last decade, tremendous efforts has been made using either
biolistic particle or Agrobacterium-mediated transformation with
different explant types to transfer several marker genes, biotic
and abiotic stress tolerance genes into wheat. This review presents
different techniques applied in wheat transformation with a view
to encourage further long-term wheat improvement research by
genetic engineering approaches.