Abstract: The mining of drought-resistant genes in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) was systematically reviewed. The response mechanisms of wheat to drought stress were elaborated from two aspects: physiological processes including water absorption and utilization as well as osmotic balance maintenance, and ABA-dependent and ABA-independent molecular signaling pathways. Common technical approaches in relevant research included genetic mapping, multi-omics analysis and gene functional validation. The identified drought-resistant genes mainly fell into categories of transcription factors, osmotic regulation, ROS scavenging and signal transduction. Their functional characteristics and regulatory modes were summarized. Moreover, the application status of marker-assisted selection, gene editing and other technologies in drought-resistant breeding was outlined. There still existed prominent limitations in wheat drought-resistance gene research, such as complex and redundant genome structure, low breeding transformation efficiency of QTLs, insufficient field validation of gene effects, backward phenotyping techniques for root traits, and the difficulty in effective utilization of wild relative resources. Future studies should strengthen the excavation of excellent drought-resistant genes from wild relatives, optimize gene-editing and marker-assisted selection technologies, and promote the pyramiding improvement of multiple desirable traits including drought resistance, high yield, heat tolerance and disease resistance, so as to provide theoretical basis and technical approaches for molecular breeding of drought-resistant wheat.

Key words: wheat（Triticum aestivum L.）, drought stress, gene mining, molecular mechanism, drought-resistant breeding