2023
Development of soybean lines without both trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitors
Contributor/Checkoff:
Category:
Sustainable Production
Keywords:
Amino acidsSoy mealSoy protein
Parent Project:
This is the first year of this project.
Lead Principal Investigator:
Hari B., USDA-ARS
Co-Principal Investigators:
Project Code:
23-203-S-E-1-A
Contributing Organization (Checkoff):
Institution Funded:
$103,000
Brief Project Summary:
Here, we are proposing a three-year project which will culminate in development of adapted soybean germplasm which bears drastically reduced (ideally eliminated) anti-nutritional Kunitz-trypsin inhibitors and Bowman-Birk inhibitors. The proposed grant has the potential to serve farmers by increasing the seed value of soybean and potentially allowing use of raw of soybean meal in current markets (swine, poultry). Drastically lowering or eliminating both KTi and BBi will also open new markets currently served by costly fishmeal. By boosting the nutritive value of soybean one can expect the demand for value added US soy in both domestic and international market continue to grow.
Information And Results
Project Summary

Project Objectives

Project Deliverables

Progress Of Work

Final Project Results

Soybean meal, with its complete amino acid profile, is an excellent protein source for livestock. However, soybean meal cannot be directly used for animal feed mixtures due to the presence of various anti-nutritional compounds which reduce animal weight gain. There are two major proteinaceous anti-nutritional factors in soybean seeds: 1) Kunitz-trypsin inhibitors (KTi) which inactivate the animal digestive enzyme trypsin; and 2) Bowman-Birk inhibitors (BBi) which inactivates both trypsin and chymotrypsin animal digestive enzymes. Earlier, we have developed soybean germplasm that has the lowest levels of trypsin inhibitor reported for conventional soybeans. However, it still retains significant levels of trypsin inhibitor activity, due to the presence of BBi proteins. Therefore, it is essential to remove both KTi and BBi for the purpose of developing soybean lines that would require extremely low or no processing. With USB funding, we have for the first-time developed soybean lines with almost undetectable amounts of BBi in the seeds by gene editing technology. We have also steadily progressed towards generating KTi knock-out lines by CRISPR/CAS9 technology. However, we are still awaiting the delivery of KTI knockout transgenic soybean lines from the University of Missouri Plant Transformation Core facility. Additional research is needed to stack these two traits (absence of KTi and BBi) into a single soybean line.

Benefit To Soybean Farmers

Our research has the potential to serve farmers by increasing the seed value of soybean and allowing use of raw of soybean meal in current markets (swine, poultry). Drastically lowering or eliminating both KTi and BBi will also open new markets currently served by costly fishmeal. By boosting the nutritive value of soybean one can expect the demand for value added US soy in both domestic and international market continue to grow.

The United Soybean Research Retention policy will display final reports with the project once completed but working files will be purged after three years. And financial information after seven years. All pertinent information is in the final report or if you want more information, please contact the project lead at your state soybean organization or principal investigator listed on the project.