Modern breeding and molecular genetic approaches to enhancing winter bread wheat resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses under global climate change (review)

Abstract

Background. Winter bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the world’s most important cereal crops, and its productivity is critical for global food security. Under ongoing climate change, the impact of biotic and abiotic stresses, including drought, high temperature, salinity, and frost, is increasing, leading to significant yield losses and reduced grain quality. This creates a strong need to integrate conventional breeding with modern molecular genetic and bioinformatics approaches to develop stress-resilient cultivars. This review summarizes current breeding and molecular genetic strategies aimed at improving the resistance of winter bread wheat (T. aestivum L.) to biotic and abiotic stresses under changing climatic conditions. We analyze the applications of genetic markers, quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), genomic selection, and genome-editing technologies. Particular attention is given to integrating high-throughput phenotyping, molecular research, and digital tools into modern breeding pipelines, as well as to emerging sources of resistance and the development of an adaptive wheat gene pool. Overall, this review highlights the importance of combining conventional breeding approaches with advanced molecular and genomic tools to enhance breeding efficiency. Such integration provides a coherent framework for developing next-generation wheat cultivars capable of maintaining stable yield performance under climate-related stress conditions and thereby contributing to global food security. The review also outlines key future research directions for improving breeding efficiency under increasing environmental variability.