**1. Introduction**

Transgenic crops are referred to as the genetically engineered crops. Traits, otherwise impossible to introduce by conventional approaches, are tailored using genetic manipulations and transformation approaches. Among traits is the introduction of agronomic, pathological, entomological, nutritional, therapeutic-, and vaccine-related characters in plants. The chapter covers state-of-the-art advancements in this rapidly developing area of transgenic technology and the technology for the food and health security mainly of poor populace in the developing countries.

This era has seen an explosive growth in population and urbanization, leading to an immense loss of agricultural land; therefore, the food security, especially which of poor populace, is of foremost importance. According to an estimate, this requires approximately 70% increment in food production by 2050. Since the 1990s, the introduction of insect resistance and herbicide tolerance into transgenic crops has increased the yield tremendously, benefiting farmers worldwide. Though production is increased by addressing problems of yield losses using transgenic technology, malnutrition is still one of the biggest challenges, demanding fortification of grains. Since nutrition is one of the main factors in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and meeting requirements of food security, several national nutrition surveys conducted in various countries have provided an avenue for governments to assess malnutrition problems across populations. Micronutrient deficiencies have been termed as the cause of "hidden hunger." Iron-fortified products are the prime examples of it. Pyramiding genes that encode provitamin A, transgenically or naturally, in crops like rice [1], potatoes [2], and maize [3, 4] have made these crops a rich source of provitamin A. In addition to adding nutritional elements in crops, the transgenic technology has led the scientists to tailor medicinal traits, for example, therapeutic [5, 6] and antigen proteins [7].

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Transgenic crops are developed in routine to express agricultural and medicinal traits, but it is very important to discuss the technologies used to develop them. Nuclear transformation is more successful in tailoring agricultural traits in crops (**Figure 1**), though it remained unfruitful in few genotypes like upland cotton in the Indo-Pak subcontinent, the reason being these genotypes are recalcitrant to regeneration from single cell, despite several crosses were made between genotypes to improve the regeneration potential, while chloroplast transformation is distinctly effective to tailor medicinal traits (**Figure 2**) [5, 6], the reason being nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and antigenic proteins are required to be accumulated in exceptionally high amounts with bona fide structures. Chloroplasts are polyploid at organellar and genome levels and provide natural gene containment [8]; hence, they are preferred

**Figure 1.** Transgenics predominantly for agronomic traits. Panel A explains the transformation steps involved in the development of transgenics. Panel B shows integration of transgene into the nuclear genome of crops via *Agrobacterium*mediated or ballistic transformation approaches where transformation vector is either bombarded or cloned between left and right borders of a plasmid vector and multiplication using suitable *Agrobacterium* strain.

to express health-related traits rather agricultural. Plastid transformation though is achieved in wheat [9], rice [10], and sugarcane, but it is reproducible only in rice [11], yet transgenic

recombination events to accumulate proteins to high levels with *bona fide* structures.

**Figure 2.** Transgenics predominantly for health-related traits. Panel A explains main steps involved in the development of transgenic chloroplasts to express transgenes that encode novel proteins to be used as nutraceuticals, therapeutics or vaccines. Panel B explains how a transgene from a transformation vector is integrated into the plastome via homologous

Introductory Chapter: Transgenics—Crops Tailored for Novel Traits

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81372

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plants remain heteroplasmic.

Introductory Chapter: Transgenics—Crops Tailored for Novel Traits http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81372 3

Transgenic crops are developed in routine to express agricultural and medicinal traits, but it is very important to discuss the technologies used to develop them. Nuclear transformation is more successful in tailoring agricultural traits in crops (**Figure 1**), though it remained unfruitful in few genotypes like upland cotton in the Indo-Pak subcontinent, the reason being these genotypes are recalcitrant to regeneration from single cell, despite several crosses were made between genotypes to improve the regeneration potential, while chloroplast transformation is distinctly effective to tailor medicinal traits (**Figure 2**) [5, 6], the reason being nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and antigenic proteins are required to be accumulated in exceptionally high amounts with bona fide structures. Chloroplasts are polyploid at organellar and genome levels and provide natural gene containment [8]; hence, they are preferred

2 Transgenic Crops - Emerging Trends and Future Perspectives

**Figure 1.** Transgenics predominantly for agronomic traits. Panel A explains the transformation steps involved in the development of transgenics. Panel B shows integration of transgene into the nuclear genome of crops via *Agrobacterium*mediated or ballistic transformation approaches where transformation vector is either bombarded or cloned between left

and right borders of a plasmid vector and multiplication using suitable *Agrobacterium* strain.

**Figure 2.** Transgenics predominantly for health-related traits. Panel A explains main steps involved in the development of transgenic chloroplasts to express transgenes that encode novel proteins to be used as nutraceuticals, therapeutics or vaccines. Panel B explains how a transgene from a transformation vector is integrated into the plastome via homologous recombination events to accumulate proteins to high levels with *bona fide* structures.

to express health-related traits rather agricultural. Plastid transformation though is achieved in wheat [9], rice [10], and sugarcane, but it is reproducible only in rice [11], yet transgenic plants remain heteroplasmic.
