Advances in genetic transformation of litchi

Abstract

Litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) is one of the most delicious fruits fetching high values in the market, and the area under its cultivation has increased manyfolds. It is generally multiplied by vegetative propagation method, and breeding is being done by conventional and molecular marker-assisted methods to achieve the quality improvement. There are various hybrids and cultivars developed conventionally by plant breeders in litchi. But due to laborious process, linkage drag, low fertility, longer flowering and fruiting time and high levels of heterozygosity, these conventional methods haven’t used to its potential in litchi. Plant genetic transformation can be a great tool in the modern molecular breeding of crops. It helps in transfer genes between unrelated plants resulting in genetically modified crop species with better agronomical traits, better nutritional values, disease resistance, insect tolerance and other desirable characteristics. Genetic transformation in plants is synergistic to conventional plant breeding technologies. By using this, the breeders can introduce novel genes irrespective of species barrier and can create phenotypes with desired characters. Over the last decade, some remarkable achievements have been made in the field of development of efficient transformation methods in field crops. Also in litchi genetic engineering technique can be used to introduce new traits in to popular genotypes, which can result into new cultivars with desirable traits. In this chapter we review the transformation methods which are being used or can be used for genetic improvement in litchi.