Cotton genetic engineering: from past till now

Cotton is considered as one of the most important crops in the world and ranks the fourth economic crop in Iran. In past years, conventional plant breeders endeavored to increase cotton quality. To overcome the constraints that conventional breeding programs comprised, new genetic engineering technologies were introduced. Since then, many cotton events resistant to pests, disease, pesticides, abiotic stresses and also high quality of lint have been produced and commercialized around the world which has confronted a noticeable public acceptance. Today and with the advent of next generation sequencing methods in favor of easier identification of suitable candidate genes for their manipulation and novel targeted genome editing technology (CRISPR/Cas9), outstanding prospects regarding cotton breeding have been developed. In present article, history of cotton breeding including genetic engineering and genome editing researches which led to production of resistant cultivars to biotic and abiotic stresses and high quality fiber are reviewed.