Abstract: Plant male sterility is a kind of resource of heterosis, which has important value in production. It may be derived from natural mutations, artificial mutations, distant hybridizations, and now through cell engineering and genetic engineering. This paper reviews the progress of strategies in production of plant male sterile lines and their corresponding fertile lines via genetic engineering approach. All strategies can be grouped into “single component strategy” and “two-component strategy”. “Single component strategy” produces conditional (reversible) male sterile line, whose fertility can be switched under given condition. Conditional male sterile line has two roles, which are CMS and maintainer line for breeding in practice; “two-component strategy” takes advantage of gene interaction and parental hybridization to generate male sterile line. Otherwise, it develops sterile line and restorer line respectively for three-line hybrid system for seed production through gene interaction. This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of gene engineering approaches of “single component strategy” and “two-component strategy” for developing male sterile line and corresponding restorer line, as well as the current status and perspective of these approaches in practice.

Key words: male sterility, genetic engineering, conditional /reversible male sterility, restoring fertility