Genetic modification for plant breeding

A typical transformation experiment will regenerate a few hundreds to a few thousands of primary transformation events.  However:

Since the insertion of the transgene occurs at random in the DNA of the host plant, some transformation events may affect the growth of the plant because they have inserted themselves in an important gene or sequence disrupting its function.

The expression of the transgene will be variable in different transformation events because it is highly dependent on the area in the genome of insertion

The first few generations of glasshouse evaluation are therefore required to eliminate events that are suboptimal, unstable or affect the growth of the plant.

At the end of this evaluation, a small number of events will be assessed in detail in the field, to generate an elite event.

Once an elite event is identified, two work streams are started: crossing the transgene into a wide range of parent lines for variety development and data collection for submission of regulatory files.