Progress and future impacts on genomic dissection of soybean domestication and improvement

Abstract

Soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) was domesticated from the wild annual progenitor Glycine soja (Sieb. & Zucc.) in the temperate zone of China. Through domestication and improvement, soybean agronomic traits and adaptability have been significantly altered. In this review, we discuss the ways in which genetic changes were selected in soybean to enable adaptation to diverse environmental conditions. Challenges and strategies are discussed for breeding new elite varieties from existing elite varieties. Finally, we propose a strategy to break the current genetic bottleneck in soybean breeding: de novo domestication, which utilizes the excellent genetic resources available in wild soybean and provides a feasible strategy for accelerating the soybean improvement process. Overall, this review serves as a guide to understand the genetic factors that have driven soybean domestication and improvement over thousands of years, promoting future generation of soybean cultivars that are optimized for high yield under stressful environmental conditions.

Keywords:

• Soybean
• domestication
• improvement
• de novo domestication

Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Tianfu Han (Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences) for his insightful suggestions, and the language expert for providing the revision of English writing. We also thank the funding support of China Agriculture Research System (CARS-04) and the Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.