Abstract: With increasing area of the transgenic crops, the biological and ecological safety of the transgenic crops has become a focus topic. To keep track of the global research trends and hot spots of safety of the transgenic crops, relevant literatures from 1999 to 2020 were explored based on the data of Web of Science(WOS) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI), and software Hiscite and Citespace were used to achieve bibliometrics visual analysis. The results show that(1) the number of literatures in WOS increased at first and then stabilized, with the highest number of 237 literatures in 2018; the number of literatures in CNKI increased at first and then decreased, with the highest number of 68 publications in 2014; (2) United States, China, United Kingdom, Germany and France were the top 5 countries for publication numbers in WOS, with 1 246, 615, 342, 272 and 260 literatures, respectively; (3) Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Monsanto Company, Iowa State University and U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service were the top 5 institutions for publication numbers in WOS, with 182, 115, 113, 112 and 93 literatures respectively; (4) In this field, 4 topics were highly concerned by the researchers, including gene flow, effects on non-target organisms, resistance of target pest and food safety. Among them, the study on effects of transgenic crops on non-target organisms were abundant, but the studies on gene flow were relatively lacking. In China, In addition, research hotspots in WOS were transgenic soybean, coexistence of transgenic and traditional crops, and environmental harm of transgenic crops, and research hotspots in CNKI were transgenic rice, comparison of transgenic and traditional breeding techniques, safety certificates.

Key words: transgenic crops, safety assessment, bibliometric analysis, database, information visualization