Updated January 27, 2021:
Final Report
The research on developing higher value soybeans with higher ?3 levels is progressing. Seed oil of the wild soybean relative Glycine soja has much higher ?3 levels than cultivated soybeans, Glycine max. Glycine soja plants were grown out to clone genes for the ?3 fatty acid accumulation in seed oil of this soybean wild relative. To express more endogenous (native) soybean ?3 fatty acid biosynthesis genes multiple gene constructs were made and tested for developing higher value soybeans with higher ?3 levels. Some soybean tissues such as somatic embryos have already been produced with these constructs and these were grown out to whole plants. Some of these soybean lines exhibit seeds with much higher ?3 fatty acid levels up to 47.1% vs. 8.4% of parental line seeds, more than a 5.6-fold increase. Insertion of the gene was confirmed with PCR for some of them. These lines are being grown out and their seeds will be analyzed in the next few months. More than 95% of the progeny seeds generated are yet to be analyzed. Many additional high ?3 soybean lines are likely from this research.