Acta Agriculturae Boreali-Sinica ›› 2026, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (2): 1-11. doi: 10.7668/hbnxb.20196210

Special Issue: Oil crops Biotechnology

• Crop Genetics & Breeding·Germplasm Resources·Biotechnology •     Next Articles

Identification of Candidate Genes for Male Sterile in Soybean by RNA-Seq

CHEN Tianyu1,2,3, XU Chao1, ZHAO Liang1, WANG Ziye1, ZHANG Qi1,2,3,4, DU Jidao1,2,3,4   

  1. 1 College of Agriculture, Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University, Daqing 163319, China
    2 Key Laboratory of Low-Carbon Green Agriculture in Northeastern China, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs P.R.China, Daqing 163319, China
    3 Heilongjiang Salt Alkali Land Improvement Engineering Technology Research Center, Daqing 163319, China
    4 National Grain Engineering Technology Research Center, Daqing 163319, China
  • Received:2025-06-14 Published:2026-05-06

Abstract:

The large-scale production of soybean hybrids and the utilization of hybrid vigor are key to germplasm resource innovation and variety improvement.By mining and utilizing soybean male sterility genes,more advantageous soybean varieties can be cultivated,thereby improving soybean yield and quality.This study selected the male sterile mutant population that appeared in the hybrid offspring of Baoquanling green soybean(female parent)and Heinong 44(male parent)as the experimental material.Flower buds were selected from soybean fertile and sterile plants,the anthers and pollen cytology were observed,and a high-throughput sequencing platform was used to perform transcriptome sequencing on the flower and anther tissues of soybean fertile and sterile plants.Annotated,screened and analyzed the sequencing results.The results indicated that abnormal development of the tapetum layer and high pollen sterility in sterile plants were important causes of male infertility.The pentose and glucuronate interconversion pathway(ko00040:Pentose and glucuronate interconversion)was a key pathway affecting soybean fertility,and the genes encoding pectin methylesterase(PEM)and pectin lyase(PL)were downregulated in expression.The differentially expressed gene protein interaction network indicated that the pectin lyase gene was a key gene affecting the interconversion pathway between pentose and glucuronic acid.The determination of pectin lyase content showed that the pectin lyase content in sterile plant anthers was significantly reduced.The qRT-PCR detection results were consistent with the RNA-Seq sequencing results.It is speculated that the downregulation of these genes may cause a decrease in pectin lyase activity,thereby affecting the development of the tapetum and leading to male infertility.

Key words: Soybean, Male infertility, Transcriptomics, Tapetum, Pectate lyase

CLC Number: 

Cite this article

CHEN Tianyu, XU Chao, ZHAO Liang, WANG Ziye, ZHANG Qi, DU Jidao. Identification of Candidate Genes for Male Sterile in Soybean by RNA-Seq[J]. Acta Agriculturae Boreali-Sinica, 2026, 41(2): 1-11. doi: 10.7668/hbnxb.20196210.

share this article