Advances and prospects in the application of modern biotechnology for improving the nutritional quality of wheat

Wheat is one of the three major global staple crops, therefore improving the nutritional quality of wheat is a crucial strategy for addressing “hidden hunger” and ensuring food security. Traditional breeding techniques face significant challenges in improving complex nutritional quality traits due to long breeding cycles and low selection efficiency. In recent years, with the breakthrough progress in modern biotechnologies such as metabolomics, gene editing, genetic transformation, doubled haploid technology, molecular marker-assisted breeding, and smart breeding, the genetic improvement of wheat nutritional quality has entered a rapid development stage. This review systematically summarizes the composition characteristics and genetic basis of wheat nutritional quality, elaborates on the research progress and application of modern biotechnologies in this field, and proposes adaptive solutions to current breeding bottlenecks. In the future, the integration of multi-omics technologies and smart breeding is expected to be a key path to break through existing technical barriers, providing new technical support and a theoretical basis for the precise improvement of wheat nutritional quality.