GM technology for product development and functional gene validation toimprove rice cultivars – an overview

GM technology can be used both to develop new GM varieties of rice with added beneficial traits that aredifficult to develop through conventional breeding and as a research tool to understand gene function, and eventually develop the product with gene based marker technology. At International Rice Research Institute, we developed an efficient transformation platform of tropical indica rice with efficiency of 30-50% by using immature embryo . This platform has been applied to generate transgenic rice with improved nutrient quality to acquire healthier rice using iron chelator and sink approaches ; to develop drought tolerance rice with rice regulatory genes ; and to validate candidate genes underlying major quantitative trait loci (QTL). The examples and a new method for genome engineering in a more specific manner with will be discussed.