In vitro plant regeneration and transformation studies in millets: current status and future prospects

Millets are a group of small seeded cereals and forage grasses grown in arid and semi-arid regions of Asia and Africa, where majority of cereals cannot be relied upon to provide sustainable yield. While major cereals such as wheat, rice and maize provide only food security, millets provide multiple securities, viz., food, fodder, health, nutrition, livelihood and ecological. Each of the millets is a reservoir of several nutrients in large quantity. They are nutritionally rich in minerals, dietary fiber, phenolics, vitamins, and are gluten-free. In the present review recent advances in tissue culture and genetic transformation studies conducted in millets to date have been summarized. Although there is a vast amount of literature available on millet tissue culture, only a limited number of transformation experiments have been conducted so far. Millets have been transformed primarily by particle bombardment, whereas Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is still lagging behind. Efforts need to be made to genetically improve millets by incorporating certain agronomically important traits, such as resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, resistance to lodging, increased seed size and palatability along with softness of grain to make these crops more desirable for consumer. © 2016, Indian Society for Plant Physiology.