Abstract:Soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr., has become the major source of edible vegetable oils and high protein feeds for livestocks in the world. A native of Eastern Asia, soybean was introduced into the USA and South America where it has become the most economically important agricultural crop and export commodity. In recent years, as demand for soybean increased due to the values of seed oil and protein, as well as industrial and nutriceutical uses, it has received more attention by scientists aiming to the development and employment of genomic technology for soybean improvement. Several DNA marker systems, such as restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), simple sequence repeat (SSR), and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), were integrated into the soybean genetic linkage map, which has been successfully utilized for mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL) linked to desirable traits and marker-assisted breeding of disease resistance and seed composition. The availability of a large number of expressed sequence tags (EST) and BAC sequences facilitated the discovery of new SNP and SSR markers in soybean toward the construction of high resolution genetic maps. Integrated genetic and physical maps will provide an invaluable resource for gene identification and positional cloning of important quantitative trait loci in soybean. Functional genomics has emerged as a new and rapidly evolved discipline to identify and understand gene functions via an integrated approach which includes transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, translational genomics, and bioinformatics. The completion of whole soybean genome sequencing is anticipated in a few years. The availability of the soybean genome sequences in combination with the integrated genetic and physical maps will be invaluable resources providing soybean researchers powerful and efficient genomic tools to identify and characterize genes or QTLs for agronomic traits of soybean. As a result, it facilitates marker-assisted breeding and soybean improvement.