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Advances and Applications of Genetic Transformation Techniques for Enhanced Trait...
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Advances and Applications of Genetic Transformation Techniques for Enhanced Trait Integration in Field Crops

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Molecular Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026 | Viewed by 481

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Xingguo Ye

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Interests: wheat; genetic transformation; gene editing; tissue and chromosome engineering; molecular breeding
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, genetic transformation techniques have rapidly been developed with the assistance of developmental regulators (WUS2, BBM, GRF-GIF, WOX5, etc.) and cut dip budding (CDB), which greatly help the increasing of transformation efficiency and the overcoming of genotype dependence limitations in the genetic transformation of many plant species. At the same time, a great number of transgenic plant lines and genome-edited mutants obtaining new traits have been generated using modified genetic transformation techniques in various field crops. To report the achievements on the development of genetic transformation techniques and their application in breeding new germplasm with enhanced trait integration in major field crops, we organize this Special Issue in this journal to promote the modified progress of these plants for variety breeding. We welcome research articles and featured mini-reviews on innovations in transformation systems and the development of genetic resources with modified or enhanced traits via genetic transformation and genome editing in wheat, rice, maize, soybean, barley, potato, tomato, cabbage, and other important field crops.

Prof. Dr. Xingguo Ye
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • genetic transformation
  • genome editing
  • trait improvement
  • genetic enrichment
  • field crops

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 1601 KB  
Article
Successful Modification of a Commercial Wheat Variety, Lunxuan 13, for Pre-Harvest Sprouting Resistance Through Editing of the TaQsd1 Gene
by Zhiyang Han, Liqiang Yu, Xi Li, Surong Wang, Ke Ding, Buquan Zhao, Weihong Huang, Hao Peng, Yang Zhou, Ke Wang, Huali Tang and Xingguo Ye
Plants 2026, 15(9), 1322; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15091322 - 25 Apr 2026
Viewed by 93
Abstract
Wheat is a globally important food crop, and its yield is crucial for ensuring food security. Lunxuan 13 is an elite wheat variety developed by the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. It has high yield potential and outstanding agronomic [...] Read more.
Wheat is a globally important food crop, and its yield is crucial for ensuring food security. Lunxuan 13 is an elite wheat variety developed by the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. It has high yield potential and outstanding agronomic traits, such as excellent seed setting rate, plump kernels, and good lodging resistance. However, this variety is highly susceptible to pre-harvest sprouting (PHS) when exposed to rain during the maturation period, leading to premature grain germination on the spike, which causes yield losses and quality deterioration, severely restricting its popularization. This study focused on addressing the PHS susceptibility of Lunxuan 13 by employing CRISPR/Cas9 technology for the targeted knockout of the three homoeologous copies (A, B, and D subgenomes) of TaQsd1, a key gene regulating seed dormancy. A total of 41 transgenic plants were obtained, achieving a transformation efficiency of 52.6%, among which 27 plants exhibited edits at the target sites, resulting in an editing efficiency of 65.9%. Phenotypic analysis of homozygous T2 edited lines revealed significant functional redundancy among the three TaQsd1 homoeologs: a significant extension of the seed dormancy period and a substantial increase in PHS resistance were achieved only when all three A, B, and D copies underwent loss-of-function mutation (aabbdd genotype). After-ripened seeds from these mutants showed normal germination ability, indicating enhanced dormancy rather than loss of germination capacity. Importantly, all of the edited lines exhibited no significant differences compared to the wild type in key agronomic traits such as plant height, spike length, and grains per spike, thus retaining the excellent characteristics of Lunxuan 13. This study successfully optimized Lunxuan 13 for significantly enhanced PHS resistance while retaining its superior agronomic traits. This work provides an effective approach for improving PHS resistance in white-grained wheat and removes a key barrier to the potential commercialization of this variety. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances and Applications of Genetic Transformation Techniques for Enhanced Trait Integration in Field Crops)
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