Abstract: The engineering application of natural hyperaccumulators in removing or inactivating metal pollutants from soil and surface water in field trials mostly presents the insurmountable shortcoming of low efficiency owing to their little biomass and slow growth. Based on further understanding of the molecular mechanism of metal uptake, translocation, and also the separation, identification, and cloning of some related functional genes, this article highlights and summarizes in detail the advances in research on transgenic techniques, such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation and particle bombardment, in breeding of plants for metal resistance and accumulation, and points out that deepening the development of transgenic plants is one of the efficient approaches to improving phytoremediation efficiency of metal-contaminated environments. From the viewpoint of sustainable development, governments should strengthen support to the development of genetic engineering for metal resistance and accumulation in plants.(Author for correspondence.E-mail: hanszhangriqing@yahoo.com.cn)

Key words: accumulation, genetically engineered, metal, plants, resistance.