Project description:Tropospheric ozone (O3) is a secondary air pollutant and anthropogenic greenhouse gas. Concentrations of tropospheric O3 have more than doubled since the Industrial Revolution, and are high enough to damage plant productivity. Soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) is the worldâs most important legume crop and is sensitive to O3. Current ground-level O3 are estimated to reduce global soybean yields by 6% to 16%. In order to understand transcriptional mechanisms of yield loss in soybean, we examined the transcriptome of soybean flower and pod tissues exposed to elevated O3 using RNA-Sequencing.
Project description:RNA-seq was used to characterize gene expression in soybean from a wide range of tissues. The primary focus of the project was small RNAs, and the identification of microRNAs and phased siRNA-generating loci, but RNA-seq data were generated from the same samples. This project was supported by the United Soybean Board.
Project description:Intercropping is a sustainable agricultural practice widely used around the world for enhancing resource use efficiency. However, short crops often grow in shade condition underneath the canopy of tall crops. Soybean is one of the most important oil crops and usually is planted in intercropping patterns. However, little is known about the acclimation responses of soybean leaves to shade in intercropping condition at the transcriptome level.
Project description:Background: Pollen, the male partner in the reproduction of flowering plants, comprises either two or three cells at maturity. The current knowledge of the pollen transcriptome is limited to the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, which has tri-cellular pollen grains at maturity. Comparative studies on pollen of other genera, particularly crop plants, are needed to understand the pollen gene networks that are subject to functional and evolutionary conservation. In this study, we used the Affymetrix Soybean GeneChip® to perform transcriptional profiling on mature bi-cellular soybean pollen. Results: Compared to the sporophyte transcriptome, the soybean pollen transcriptome revealed a restricted and unique repertoire of genes, with a significantly greater proportion of specifically expressed genes than is found in the sporophyte tissue. Comparative analysis shows that, among the 37,500 soybean unique transcripts addressed in this study, 10,299 genes (27.46%) are expressed in pollen. Of the pollen-expressed genes, about 9,489 (92.13%) are also expressed in sporophytic tissues, and 810 (7.87%) are selectively expressed in pollen. Overall, the soybean pollen transcriptome shows an enrichment of transcription factors (mostly zinc finger family proteins), cell cycle-related transcripts, signal recognition receptors, ethylene responsive factors, chromatin remodeling factors, and members of the ubiquitin proteasome proteolytic pathway. Moreover, we identify several new pollen-specific candidate genes that might play a significant role in pollen biology. Conclusion: This is the first report of a soybean pollen transcriptional profile. These data extend our current knowledge regarding regulatory pathways that govern the gene regulation and development of pollen. We also demonstrate that pollen is a rich store of regulatory proteins that are essential and sufficient for de novo gene expression. A comparison between transcription factors up-regulated in soybean and those upregulated in Arabidopsis revealed some divergence in the numbers and kinds of regulatory proteins expressed in both species.
Project description:Virus Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) was used to silence the expression of soybean Replication Protein 3 (GmRPA3). RNAseq was used to compare gene expression in GmRPA3 silenced and empty vector treated plants
Project description:Controlled deterioration treatment (CDT) negatively affects the seed quality and vigor during post-harvest storage. A label-free proteomic approach was utilized to understand the CDT responses in soybean seeds. Soybean seed are rich in seed-storage proteins (SSPs) constituting up to 70 to 80% of the total seed protein content. Due to the presence of these SSPs, it is very difficult to identify and/or characterize the low-abundance regulatory proteins. Availability of appropriate methods for extraction of low-abundance proteins (LAPs) are now providing a platform for the identification of novel proteins involved in the signal perception and transduction during environmental perturbations. To enrich LAPs, the extracted total seed proteins were subjected to protamine sulfate precipitation (PSP) method to deplete SSPs. Fractionated protein fractions thus prepared were analyzed for identification of differential proteins using Label-free quantitative proteomics approaches.
Project description:Alkali stress is one of the most severe abiotic stresses affecting agricultural production worldwide. To understand the phosphorylation events in soybean in response to alkali stress, we performed the TMT labeling-based quantitative phosphoproteomic analyses on soybean leaf and root tissues under 50 mM NaHCO3 treatment.
Project description:Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase (MAPKKK) assume a pivotal position within the MAPK cascade signaling pathway that converts external stimuli into intracellular responses, and plays a central role in adaptation and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. Only a limited number of researches have reported that MAPKKK conducted on regulating the resistance to soybeans mosaic viruses (SMV). Here, we identified a MAPKKK 2-like gene named as GmMEKK2 from SMV resistance cultivar. Overexpression of GmMEKK2 in soybean not only reduced SMV content but also decreased the disease index of virus. Importantly, overexpression of GmMEKK2 mitigated the yield loss after SMV inoculation and improved the yield-related traits of soybean. These demonstrated that GmMEKK2 had a favorable role in SMV resistance. This study explored the functions of GmMEKK2 in soybean and provided an assertive solution for effectively improving SMV resistance.