Overexpression of an ethylene-forming ACC oxidase (ACO) gene precedes the Minute Hilum seed coat phenotype in Glycine max.

Background: To elucidate features of seed development, we investigated the transcriptome of a soybean isoline from the germplasm collection that contained an introgressed allele known as minute hilum (mi) which confers a smaller hilum region where the seed attaches to the pod and also results in seed coat cracking surrounding the hilum region.

Results: RNAs were extracted from immature seed from an extended hilum region (i.e.

An embryo lethal transgenic line manifests global expression changes and elevated protein/oil ratios in heterozygous soybean plants.

Understanding the molecular processes of seed development is important especially in agronomic crops that produce large amounts of nutrient reserves. Because soybean is a vital source of vegetable protein worldwide, producers are concerned about increasing the total amount of protein in the seed without substantially lowering the amount of oil, another economically important product. Here we describe a transgenic soybean line with increased protein and protein/oil ratio, containing an average of 42.

Nonallelic homologous recombination events responsible for copy number variation within an RNA silencing locus.

The structure of chalcone synthase () gene repeats in different alleles of the (inhibitor) locus in soybean spawns endogenous RNA interference (RNAi) that leads to phenotypic change in seed coat color of this major agronomic crop. Here, we examined gene copy number by digital PCR and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) through whole genome resequencing of 15 cultivars that varied in alleles of the locus (, , , and ) that control the pattern distribution of pigments in the seed coats. Lines homozygous for the allele had the highest copy number followed by the and cultivars which were more related to each other than to the lines with alleles.

Host-derived gene silencing of parasite fitness genes improves resistance to soybean cyst nematodes in stable transgenic soybean.

Soybean expressing small interfering RNA of SCN improved plant resistance to SCN consistently, and small RNA-seq analysis revealed a threshold of siRNA expression required for resistance ability. Soybean cyst nematode (SCN), Heterodera glycines, is one of the most destructive pests limiting soybean production worldwide, with estimated losses of $1 billion dollars annually in the USA alone. RNA interference (RNAi) has become a powerful tool for silencing gene expression.

Ribosome profiling reveals changes in translational status of soybean transcripts during immature cotyledon development.

To understand translational capacity on a genome-wide scale across three developmental stages of immature soybean seed cotyledons, ribosome profiling was performed in combination with RNA sequencing and cluster analysis. Transcripts representing 216 unique genes demonstrated a higher level of translational activity in at least one stage by exhibiting higher translational efficiencies (TEs) in which there were relatively more ribosome footprint sequence reads mapping to the transcript than were present in the control total RNA sample. The majority of these transcripts were more translationally active at the early stage of seed development and included 12 unique serine or cysteine proteases and 16 2S albumin and low molecular weight cysteine-rich proteins that may serve as substrates for turnover and mobilization early in seed development.