Factors affecting health-beneficial compounds in soybean

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The market for nutraceuticals and functional foods is rapidly growing, as they are gaining recognition for their potential to treat and protect against several important diseases. Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] contains several phytochemicals with putative health benefits, including isoflavones and saponins, which are reported to have antiatherosclerotic, antitumorial, antioxidative, estrogenic, and antimicrobial activities. Research to date has focused on isoflavones, however, soyasaponins are other compounds with health-beneficial properties. While the impact of various soybean health-beneficial compounds on human health has been the subject of intense research efforts and debate, research data on how their content and profile in plants can be affected by environmental factors remains limited. The proposed research program aims at providing an understanding of environmental factors affecting the concentrations of health-beneficial compounds in soybean, with a focus on soyasaponins and isoflavones. Specifically, I will conduct field experiments to identify environmental factors affecting soyasaponin B concentrations in soybean the most, and also identity stages of development the most susceptible. Ultimately results obtained will allow the construction of models that will permit the prediction of soyasaponin concentrations in field-grown soybeans. In controlled environments, I will focus my research on the impact of temperature on soyasaponins and isoflavones. Temperature has consistently been reported to be one of the most important abiotic factor affecting the accumulation of several health-beneficial compounds in soybeans, including isoflavones. The spatio-temporal response to different temperature treatments will be studied, with a focus on the response of the two main parts of developing seeds (i.e., the cotyledons and the hypocotyl), which largely differ in their accumulation of health-beneficial phytochemicals. Global gene expression will be studied using RNASeq, concurrently targeted metabolites (i.e., soyasaponins, isoflavones, and their precursors) will be quantified. Results from the transcriptome analysis will be related to the quantification of metabolites of interest to determine the mechanism by which temperature affect the accumulation of health-beneficial compounds in soybeans. This research program will increase our understanding of factors affecting important health-beneficial compounds in soybeans, which should allow the production of plants with high concentrations for the nutraceutical and functional food sectors, while minimizing variations in marketable products. This program will contribute to the development of new uses for soybeans, which should lead to the development of new value-added markets and create economic opportunities for Canadian agricultural producers and associated agri-industries.