Soybean Research

Value-added traits in soybean seed coats
BREEDING TO INCREASE TRAIT WORTH AND ECONOMIC RETURN
 Dr. Douglas Johnson, University of Ottawa; Dr. Istvan Rajcan, University of Guelph

We are developing the soybean seed coat as a system for the commercial production of proteins and biochemicals. New markets for seed coats may be created, thus improving their value and the return to the grower.

Transgenic plants expressing marker genes or proteins with proven or potential commercial value such as peroxidases; laccases and antimicrobial peptides have been generated providing opportunities for producers within the new “Bioeconomy”.

This collaborative project focuses on breeding these plants and reaching two goals:

1. In maize and other plants breeding and selection can yield lines with expression levels increased five to 50 folds. If this can be demonstrated for soybean seed coats, the economic viability of the seed coat system would be vastly improved;
2. Before commercialization, we must demonstrate that the traits are stable over several generations so that the production can be scaled up for trials.

Only modest increases in the activity of the enzyme from generation to generation were observed. Where larger increases were observed, the plants either did not survive, did not produce seed or showed loss of all or part of the transgene. Variation in enzyme activity between lines might be associated with transgene position effects and/or silencing in addition to instability. While it was possible to derive lines with stable transgenes, instability was observed for all types of transgenics.