SUMMARY. Wheat is a strategic agricultural crop in the world and plays a leading role in the food supply of mankind. Despite the generally increasing trend of its production, global climate changes and the associated increase in the number of soil and air droughts during the growing season of plants require the development of new strategies in the adaptation of wheat to this abiotic stress factor, the action of which causes a decrease in yield. Genetic engineering made it possible to increase the efficiency of creating new drought-resistant genotypes of wheat, and its application became a significant addition to the traditional selection of this crop. Recently, some progress has been made in identifying key regulators of drought tolerance in wheat, and new genes have been identified that confer resistance and improve plant growth and survival. The presented literature review provides examples of successful application of genetic engineering to improve wheat adaptation to drought. Genes involved in the biosynthesis of osmolytes, proteins, and enzymes that function as scavengers of reactive oxygen species, molecular chaperones, and ion transporters, as well as regulatory genes of transcription factors and protein kinases and used to increase drought resistance of wheat, were considered. Information on the physiological and biochemical characteristics of genetically modified plants with various built-in genes for testing their tolerance to water deficit in controlled or field conditions is summarized. The results of editing the wheat genome to improve its drought resistance are presented.
Keywords: wheat, drought, genetic modification, transgenic plants, functional and regulatory genes, genome editing
