Progress of mutant resource development and tilling on starch biosynthesis in wheat.

Abstract

Induced mutations have been widely utilized for the development of plant mutant germplasm and varieties since 1927 and have contributed to genetic diversity enhancement and food security in the world. Mutant resources are essential for gene identification and functional characterization by forward and reverse genetic strategies. The publishing of annotated wheat reference genomes is greatly promoting the progress of wheat functional genomic research. Mutant resources of a broad spectrum and diversified wild- types will be the prerequisites in this process, in part due to the polyploid nature of wheat. This review describes the progress of mutant resource development derived from the winter wheat cultivar 'Jing411'. The segregating M₂ population has been used for mining functional mutant alleles of key genes involved in starch biosynthesis and could be further used for allele mining of any other target genes. The morphological mutant resources developed from various mutagens have been, and are going to be, used to develop genetic populations for gene mapping and the genetic analysis of biological functions.