Increasing crop yields to ensure food security is a major challenge. Mutagenesis is an important tool in crop improvement and is free of the regulatory restrictions imposed on genetically modified organisms. The forward genetic approach enables the identification of improved or novel phenotypes that can be exploited in conventional breeding programmes. Powerful reverse genetic strategies that allow the detection of induced point mutations in individuals of the mutagenized populations can address the major challenge of linking sequence information to the biological function of genes and can also identify novel variation for plant breeding. This review briefly discusses recent advances in the detection of mutants and the potential of mutagenesis for crop improvement.

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The wheat grain comprises three groups of major components, starch, protein, and cell wall polysaccharides (dietary fiber), and a range of minor components that may confer benefits to human health. Detailed analyses of dietary fiber and other bioactive components were carried out under the EU FP6 HEALTHGRAIN program on 150 bread wheat lines grown on a single site, 50 lines of other wheat species and other cereals grown on the same site, and 23–26 bread wheat lines grown in six environments. Principal component analysis allowed the 150 bread wheat lines to be classified on the basis of differences in their contents of bioactive components and wheat species (bread, durum, spelt, emmer, and einkorn wheats) to be clearly separated from related cereals (barley, rye, and oats). Such multivariate analyses could be used to define substantial equivalence when novel (including transgenic) cereals are considered.