Interspecific Hybridization of Transgenic and -An Overview.

In nature, interspecific hybridization occurs frequently and can contribute to the production of new species or the introgression of beneficial adaptive features between species. It has great potential in agricultural systems to boost the process of targeted crop improvement. In the advent of genetically modified (GM) crops, it has a disadvantage that it involves the transgene escaping to unintended plants, which could result in non-specific weedy crops. Several crop species in the genus have close kinship: canola () is an ancestral hybrid of and and mustard species such as , , and share common genomes. Hence, intraspecific hybridization among the species is most common, especially between and . In general, interspecific hybrids cause numerous genetic and phenotypic changes in the parental lines. Consequently, their fitness and reproductive ability are also highly varied. In this review, we discuss the interspecific hybridization and reciprocal hybridization studies of and and their potential in the controlled environment. Further, we address the fate of transgenes (herbicide resistance) and their ability to transfer to their progenies or generations. This could help us to understand the environmental influence of interspecific hybrids and how to effectively manage their transgene escape in the future.