title: The place of asymmetric somatic hybridization in wheat breeding.
abstract: Since its first development some 40 years ago, the application of the somatic hybridization technique has generated a body of hybrid plant material involving a wide combination of parental species. Until the late 1990s, the technique was ineffective in wheat, as regeneration from protoplasts was proving difficult to achieve. Since this time, however, a successful somatic hybridization protocol for wheat has been established and used to generate a substantial number of both symmetric and asymmetric somatic hybrids and derived materials, especially involving the parental combination bread wheat and tall wheatgrass (Thinopyrum ponticum). This review describes the current state of the art for somatic hybridization in wheat and focuses on its potential application for wheat improvement.
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Plant Cell Engineering and Germplasm Innovation, Ministry of Education, School of Life Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, China.
authors.forename: Shuwei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Guangmin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xia
mesh_terms: D001947:Breeding / Q000379:methods*; D020732:Cytogenetic Analysis; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D006824:Hybridization, Genetic; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable; D014908:Triticum / Q000235:genetics*