Despite the importance of soybean as a major crop, genome-wide variation and evolution of cultivated soybeans are largely unknown. Here, we catalogued genome variation in an annual soybean population by high-depth resequencing of 10 cultivated and 6 wild accessions and obtained 3.87 million high-quality single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) after excluding the sites with missing data in any accession. Nuclear genome phylogeny supported a single origin for the cultivated soybeans. We identified 10-fold longer linkage disequilibrium (LD) in the wild soybean relative to wild maize and rice. Despite the small population size, the long LD and large SNP data allowed us to identify 206 candidate domestication regions with significantly lower diversity in the cultivated, but not in the wild, soybeans. Some of the genes in these candidate regions were associated with soybean homologues of canonical domestication genes. However, several examples, which are likely specific to soybean or eudicot crop plants, were also observed. Consequently, the variation data identified in this study should be valuable for breeding and for identifying agronomically important genes in soybeans. However, the long LD of wild soybeans may hinder pinpointing causal gene(s) in the candidate regions.

Cultivated soybean (Glycine max) suffers from a narrow germplasm relative to other crop species, probably because of under-use of wild soybean (Glycine soja) as a breeding resource. Use of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping array is a promising method for dissecting cultivated and wild germplasms to identify important adaptive genes through high-density genetic mapping and genome-wide association studies. Here we describe a large soybean SNP array for use in diversity analyses, linkage mapping and genome-wide association analyses. More than four million high-quality SNPs identified from high-depth genome re-sequencing of 16 soybean accessions and low-depth genome re-sequencing of 31 soybean accessions were used to select 180,961 SNPs for creation of the Axiom(®) SoyaSNP array. Validation analysis for a set of 222 diverse soybean lines showed that 170,223 markers were of good quality for genotyping. Phylogenetic and allele frequency analyses of the validation set data indicated that accessions showing an intermediate morphology between cultivated and wild soybeans collected in Korea were natural hybrids. More than 90 unanchored scaffolds in the current soybean reference sequence were assigned to chromosomes using this array. Finally, dense average spacing and preferential distribution of the SNPs in gene-rich chromosomal regions suggest that this array may be suitable for genome-wide association studies of soybean germplasm. Taken together, these results suggest that use of this array may be a powerful method for soybean genetic analyses relating to many aspects of soybean breeding.

Soybean exhibits natural variation in flower and seed coat colors via the deposition of various anthocyanin pigments in the respective tissues. Although pigmentation in seeds or flowers has been well dissected at molecular level in several plant species, the genes controlling natural variation in anthocyanin traits in the soybean are not completely understood. To evaluate the genetic correlation between genetic loci and genes, 8 enzyme-encoding gene families and a transcription factor were localized in a soybean genome-wide genetic map. Among the seed coat color-controlling loci, the genetic location of the gene encoding for W1 was substantiated in the context of the current soybean molecular genetic map and O was postulated to correspond to anthocyanidin reductase. Among the genetic loci that regulate flower pigmentation, the genetic locations of the genes encoding for W1, W4, and Wp were identified, W3 was mapped on soybean linkage group B2 (chromosome 14), and W2 was postulated to correspond to an MYB transcription factor. Correlation studies between the developed markers and 3 color-controlling loci provided important empirical data that should prove useful in the design of marker-assisted breeding schemes as well as future association studies involving soybean.

Narrow leaflet soybean (Glycine max) varieties tend to have more seeds per pod than broad leaflet varieties. Narrow leaflet in soybean is conferred by a single recessive gene, ln. Here, we show that the transition from broad (Ln) to narrow leaflet (ln) is associated with an amino acid substitution in the EAR motif encoded by a gene (designated Gm-JAGGED1) homologous to Arabidopsis JAGGED (JAG) that regulates lateral organ development and the variant exerts a pleiotropic effect on fruit patterning. The genomic region that regulates both the traits was mapped to a 12.6-kb region containing only one gene, Gm-JAG1. Introducing the Gm-JAG1 allele into a loss-of-function Arabidopsis jagged mutant partially restored the wild-type JAG phenotypes, including leaf shape, flower opening, and fruit shape, but the Gm-jag1 (ln) and EAR-deleted Gm-JAG1 alleles in the jagged mutant did not result in an apparent phenotypic change. These observations indicate that despite some degree of functional change of Gm-JAG1 due to the divergence from Arabidopsis JAG, Gm-JAG1 complemented the functions of JAG in Arabidopsis thaliana. However, the Gm-JAG1 homoeolog, Gm-JAG2, appears to be sub-or neofunctionalized, as revealed by the differential expression of the two genes in multiple plant tissues, a complementation test, and an allelic analysis at both loci.

Narrow leaflet cultivars tend to have more seeds per pod than broad leaflet cultivars in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], which suggests that the leaflet-shape trait locus is tightly linked to or cosegregates with the trait locus controlling the number of seeds per pod (NSPP). Here, we attempted to further elucidate the relationship between leaflet shape and NSPP. A BC(3)F(2) population from a cross between the 'Sowon' (narrow leaflets and high NSPP) and 'V94-5152' (broad leaflets and low NSPP) variants was used. The results of the molecular genetic analyses indicated that, although the NSPP characteristic, in particular, the occurrence of 4-seeded pods, is governed by additional modifying genes that are likely present in Sowon, the two traits cosegregate in the BC(3)F(2) population. The mapping results generated using public markers demonstrated that the narrow leaflet-determining gene in Sowon is an allele of the previously highly studied ln gene on chromosome 20. A high-resolution map delimited the genomic region controlling both the leaflet shape and NSPP traits to a sequence length of 66 kb, corresponding to 0.7 cM. Among the three genes annotated in this 66 kb region, Glyma20g25000.1 appeared to be a good candidate for the Ln-encoding gene, owing to its 47.8% homology with the protein encoding for the JAGGED gene that regulates lateral organ development in Arabidopsis. Taken together, our results suggested that phenotypic variations for narrow leaflet and NSPP are predominantly from the pleiotropic effects of the ln gene. Thus, our results should provide a molecular framework for soybean breeding programs with the objective of improving soybean yield.

Key message Genotyping data of a comprehensive Korean soybean collection obtained using a large SNP array were used to clarify global distribution patterns of soybean and address the evolutionary history of soybean. Abstract Understanding diversity and evolution of a crop is an essential step to implement a strategy to expand its germplasm base for crop improvement research. Accessions intensively collected from Korea, which is a small but central region in the distribution geography of soybean, were genotyped to provide sufficient data to underpin population genetic questions. After removing natural hybrids and duplicated or redundant accessions, we obtained a non-redundant set comprising 1957 domesticated and 1079 wild accessions to perform population structure analyses. Our analysis demonstrates that while wild soybean germplasm will require additional sampling from diverse indigenous areas to expand the germplasm base, the current domesticated soybean germplasm is saturated in terms of genetic diversity. We then showed that our genome-wide polymorphism map enabled us to detect genetic loci underlying flower color, seed-coat color, and domestication syndrome. A representative soybean set consisting of 194 accessions was divided into one domesticated subpopulation and four wild subpopulations that could be traced back to their geographic collection areas. Population genomics analyses suggested that the monophyletic group of domesticated soybeans was likely originated at a Japanese region. The results were further substantiated by a phylogenetic tree constructed from domestication-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms identified in this study. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00122-018-3271-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Despite the intensive soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] genome studies, the high chromosome number (20) of the soybean plant relative to many other major crops has hindered the development of a high-resolution genomewide genetic map derived from a single population. Here, we report such a map, which was constructed in an F15 population derived from a cross between G. max and G. soja lines using indel polymorphisms detected via a G. soja genome resequencing. By targeting novel indel markers to marker-poor regions, all marker intervals were reduced to under 6 cM on a genome scale. Comparison of the Williams 82 soybean reference genome sequence and our genetic map indicated that marker orders of 26 regions were discrepant with each other. In addition, our comparison showed seven misplaced and two absent markers in the current Williams 82 assembly and six markers placed on the scaffolds that were not incorporated into the pseudomolecules. Then, we showed that, by determining the missing sequences located at the presumed beginning points of the five major discordant segments, these observed discordant regions are mostly errors in the Williams 82 assembly. Distributions of the recombination rates along the chromosomes were similar to those of other organisms. Genotyping of indel markers and genome resequencing of the two parental lines suggested that some marker-poor chromosomal regions may represent introgression regions, which appear to be prevalent in soybean. Given the even and dense distribution of markers, our genetic map can serve as a bridge between genomics research and breeding programs.

Data phenotyping traits on soybean seeds such as shape and color has been obscure because it is difficult to define them clearly. Further, it takes too much time and effort to have sufficient number of samplings especially length and width. These difficulties prevented seed morphology to be incorporated into efficient breeding program. Here, we propose methods for an image acquisition, a data processing, and analysis for the morphology and color of soybean seeds by high-throughput method using images analysis. As results, quantitative values for colors and various types of morphological traits could be screened to create a standard for subsequent evaluation of the genotype. Phenotyping method in the current study could define the morphology and color of soybean seeds in highly accurate and reliable manner. Further, this method enables the measurement and analysis of large amounts of plant seed phenotype data in a short time, which was not possible before. Fast and precise phenotype data obtained here may facilitate Genome Wide Association Study for the gene function analysis as well as for development of the elite varieties having desirable seed traits.