{"id":224407,"date":"2025-11-03T01:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T07:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/rare-lost-allele-that-boosts-soybean-seed-protein-identified"},"modified":"2025-11-03T01:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T07:07:10","slug":"rare-lost-allele-that-boosts-soybean-seed-protein-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/rare-lost-allele-that-boosts-soybean-seed-protein-identified","title":{"rendered":"Rare lost allele that boosts soybean seed protein identified"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/rare-lost-allele-that-boosts-soybean-seed-protein-identified.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A research team led by Prof. Hou Xingliang from the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has used genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify a rare allele that controls seed protein content and was lost during soybean domestication.<\/p>\n<p>Their findings were <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.2508709122\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/i> on Oct. 30.<\/p>\n<p>Domesticating <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/wild+plants\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">wild plants<\/a> into crops represents a breakthrough in human history, yet key beneficial traits are often lost in the process. Soybeans are a good example. Modern soybean cultivars have lower seed protein content (30%\u201340%) than their wild ancestors, wild soybeans (Glycine soja), which typically contain 50%\u201360% protein. Since soybeans (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) are the primary source of plant-based protein for both <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/livestock+feed\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">livestock feed<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/human+nutrition\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">human nutrition<\/a>, increasing seed protein content is a critical goal for <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/agricultural+research\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">agricultural research<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A research team led by Prof. Hou Xingliang from the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has used genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify a rare allele that controls seed protein content and was lost during soybean domestication. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}