Gene stacking in transgenic plants - the challenge for 21 st century plant biotechnology

摘要

One of the major technical hurdles impeding the advance of plant genetic engineering and biotechnology is the fact that the expression or manipulation of multiple genes in plants is still difficult to achieve. Although a small proportion of commercialgenetically modified (GM) crops present 'stacked' or 'pyramided' traits, only a handful of products have been developed by introducing three or more novel genes. On the research front, a variety of conventional and more novel methods have been employedto introduce multiple genes into plants, but all techniques suffer from certain drawbacks. In this review, the potential and problems of these various techniques and strategies are discussed, and the prospects for improving these technologies in the future are presented.