Genetic engineering of radish: current achievements and future goals

Radish is a major root crop grown in the Far East and is especially important to some low-income countries where it is consumed on a daily basis. Developments in gene technology systems have helped to accelerate the production of useful germplasms, but progress has been slow, though achieved, via in planta methods and useful traits have been introduced. In the wake of the new Millennium, future goals in terms of improving transformation efficiency and selection of new traits for generating late-flowering radish are described. Furthermore, the techniques available for incorporating pharmaceutical proteins into radish to deliver edible proteins on-site are discussed. Finally, the concerns of releasing transgenic radish to the field in terms of pollen-mediated gene transfer are also reviewed. Such a report identifies key areas of research that is required to allow the crop satisfy the need of poor impoverished countries in the Far East.