Project Number: 1245-21220-229-01
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Oct 01, 2010
End Date: Sep 30, 2013

Objective:
Develop soybean with broad resistance to all pests and pathogens using genetics and functional genomics. Special emphasis will be placed upon resistance to fungi and nematodes, as these are the main pests of soybean.

Approach:
There is extensive knowledge of plant defense pathways leading to resistance to a multitude of pathogens, including fungi and bacteria, in the model system Arabidopsis. Especially important are the genes leading to the synthesis of jasmonate-related compounds, salicylic acid, ethylene and genes involve in the hypersensitive response. We propose to move the knowledge of disease resistance obtained using Arabidopsis into soybean to develop soybean with superior resistance to pests and pathogens, especially to fungi and nematodes, the primary biotic causes of yield loss. Over a multi-year period, we propose to identify more than fifty soybean genes homologous to Arabidopsis genes important to defense through comparison of DNA sequences and translated protein sequences, complementation of Arabidopsis mutants, and silencing of the homologous soybean genes.