Excellence in Research: Genomic Characterization of Seed Filling and Nutritional Features in Edamame and Mature Soybeans

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Soybean is one of the most widely grown crops worldwide and has an important role in food security and international trade. It provides a major source of plant protein and oil for human consumption as well as protein meal for animal feeds. Edamame is a vegetable soybean relatively new to North America that is harvested at the green bean stage and directly used for diet dishes or snacks. Seed filling and nutritional features are crucial for crop yield and product quality. This project will elucidate the biological and genomic features of seed filling as well as nutritional composition in edamame and mature soybeans and will identify genomic variants and causal candidate genes associated with the target traits. Rapid and efficient techniques of evaluation and genetic analysis will be used. The methodologies and research results will be used to improve STEM education, including student and next-generation scientist training as well as course teaching, and increase public scientific literacy and engagement through a showcase to different stakeholders. In addition, this project will benefit related research in grain crops, vegetables, and fruit species. The results will be valuable to a broad research and public community.Seed filling represents an economically important complex trait under genetic control that involves many functional genes and/or metabolism pathways. Preliminary observations indicate that edamame has a high level of genetic variability that contributes to soybean genetic diversity. The goal of this project is to elucidate the underlying genetic architecture and molecular mechanisms regulating seed composition and seed filling through genomic analysis of the traits in both edamame and mature soybeans. The project will specifically address: 1) biological and genomic characterization of seed filling including seed filling duration, filling rate and seed size in soybean; 2) development of a high throughput phenotyping methodology for evaluating soybean nutritional composition traits and application of the methodology to characterize seed nutritional composition (protein, oil, fiber sucrose, etc.) in edamame and mature soybeans; 3) detection of genomic features, QTL, and/or candidate genes associated with seed filling and seed composition regulation based on the analysis of diverse germplasm accessions and breeding lines which will be sequenced; and 4) investigation of the roles of the major genomic determinants of the traits in the artificial selection of modern soybeans. Two large populations of germplasm accessions and breeding lines with high diversity will be used, and genome-wide association study (GWAS) and whole genome sequencing will be employed. Along with the publication of achieved results, the generated datasets for public access, and the training of post-doc and students, this project will have a broad and sustainable impact and benefit to society.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.