Atlanta, Georgia
November 20, 2008
By Stephanie Schupska
For millennia, people have grown soybeans and turned them into
useful products like oil and livestock feed. But when it comes
to understanding why a soybean grows, blooms or produces like it
does, researchers are left with unanswered questions.
University of Georgia professor
Wayne Parrott aims to find the answers with a three-year, $2.5
million grant from the National Science Foundation and a jumping
gene in rice found by a UGA colleague.
“I’m convinced that soybeans would be so much more useful and
flexible if we knew what genes we need to be working with,” said
Parrott, a crop and soil sciences professor in the UGA College
of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The soybean’s genome was sequenced, or mapped, earlier this
year. Now Parrott and his colleagues from the universities of
Nebraska, Missouri-Columbia and Minnesota are taking soybean’s
genetic map and translating it so that soybean breeders can use
it to produce a better bean.
Parrott’s counterparts are using radiation. He’s using a jumping
gene that UGA plant biology professor Sue Wessler found in rice.
The gene her lab discovered is one of only a few with the
ability to cut themselves out and move to another location in
the genome, altering it, Parrott said.
She shared the technology with Parrott, whose lab will insert
the jumping rice gene into soybean plants. When something
changes in a plant with the added jumping gene – such as how
fast it flowers – they will then search the plant genetically.
When they find the jumping gene – presumably in a new location
in the genome – they can identify the modified gene there and,
in this example, know what caused the plant to bloom faster.
The more genes they identify using the jumping gene technique,
the more they’ll know about the soybean and what they can do to
improve it. The soybean has a few issues that could stand
modifying, Parrott said.
On grocery store shelves, soybeans may seem like the perfect
plant. It can be made into tofu and synthetic meat products.
However, the bean’s protein is not balanced to the 21 amino
acids humans need for a healthy diet. In addition, soybean oil
contains trans fats after it’s processed.
On the agricultural side, an improved soybean variety would
allow farmers to plant a crop that produces more soybeans using
the same amount of land. And with soybean plants that are
disease and insect resistant, farmers wouldn’t have to apply as
much money-draining pesticides.
Farmers could also grow varieties that produce more oil or more
protein.
“Genome sequencing and gene discovery is starting to open a new,
exciting era for us,” Parrott said.
It’s a good time for soybeans. Since 1982, the U.S. has had a 15
percent increase in total soybean production.
“Acreage-wise, soybeans are among the top three crops in the
United States,” Parrott said. “It’s the No. 1 source of
vegetable oil and vegetable protein. In that regard, it’s the
most important of the crops.”
Soybeans are used for adhesives, alternative fuels,
disinfectants, plastics, salad dressings, particleboard, candy,
cookies and swine feed, to name a few. “It just boggles the mind
that it lends itself to so many different uses,” Parrott said.
“It’s even in furniture care products.”
Stephanie Schupska is a news editor with the University of
Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. |
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