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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Urbana, Illinois » Soybean/maize Germplasm, Pathology, and Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #314223
Title: GmHs1-1, encoding a calcineurin-like protein, controls hard-seededness in soybean

Author
item SUN, LIANJUN - Purdue University
item MIAO, ZHENYAN - Purdue University
item CAI, CHUNMEI - Qingdao Agricultural University
item ZHANG, DAJIAN - Purdue University
item ZHAO, MEIXIA - Purdue University
item WU, YANYAN - Qingdao Agricultural University
item ZHANG, XUELING - Qingdao Agricultural University
item SWARM, STEPHEN - University Of Illinois
item ZHOU, LIWEN - University Of Missouri
item ZHANG, ZHANYUAN - University Of Missouri
item Nelson, Randall
item MA, JIANXIN - Purdue University

Submitted to: Nature Genetics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/27/2015
Publication Date: 6/22/2015
Citation: Sun, L., Miao, Z., Cai, C., Zhang, D., Zhao, M., Wu, Y., Zhang, X., Swarm, S.A., Zhou, L., Zhang, Z.J., Nelson, R.L., Ma, J. 2015. GmHs1-1, encoding a calcineurin-like protein, controls hard-seededness in soybean. Nature Genetics. 47:939-943.

Interpretive Summary: The wild progenitor of soybean has a seed coat that is initially impermeable to water. This is an essential feature of the wild species that ensures that seeds can survive for long periods in the soil. Eliminating this hard seed coat was an essential step in the domestication of soybean. Understanding the genetic control of hard seededness is useful for the utilization of wild soybean in soybean breeding. In this research, we identified the gene that controls hard seededness, determined its function, and developed DNA markers that can be used to characterize other soybean and wild soybean lines for this trait. We surveyed a range of diverse soybean landraces and U.S. varieties and found that some of these soybean lines had the gene for hard seededness but all such lines also have genetically controlled cracking in their seed coats that allows them to imbibe water. Genes in the same chromosomal region as the gene causing hard seed may have also been lost in the domestication process so soybean lines with a hard seed coat may also have additional genes that are rare in the domesticated soybean. This research is important to breeders and geneticists who are interested in the domestication process and utilizing wild relatives in plant breeding.

Technical Abstract: Loss of seed-coat impermeability was an essential step towards domestication of many leguminous crops for production of their highly nutritious seeds. Here we show that seed-coat impermeability in wild soybean is controlled by a single gene, Hard seededness 1 (Hs1), which encodes a calcineurin-like metallo-phosphoesterase transmembrane protein and is primarily expressed in the malphighian layer of seed coats. The transition from impermeability to permeability was caused by artificial selection of a point mutation within Hs1. Interestingly, a number of soybean landraces escaped from the selection for permeability, due to an alternative, and perhaps, unintentional selection for seed-coat cracking that also enables seed imbibition. Despite the single origin of the mutant allele (hs1), the distribution of seed-coat-cracking landraces in the context of soybean population structure suggests that hs1 may have experienced recurrent selection, possibly due to introgression of Hs1 from seed-coat cracking landraces and subsequent selection for permeable but non-cracking varieties.