ABSTRACT
In addition to conventional approaches to the breeding of durum wheat, which are discussed in other chapters of this book, transformation techniques offer the possibility of genetically engineering improved agronomic and quality traits. In this context, genetic modification (GM) may be used to down-regulate or silence the expression of native genes (thus producing “targeted mutants”); it may be used to insert additional copies of native genes (to produce overexpression phenotypes); and it may be used to insert and express foreign genes from either related or distant sources.
