Asparaginyl-tRNA synthetase gene (<i>SYNC1</i>) characterized by <i>Lotus corniculatus</i> FOX-superroot lines has effects on plant morphology and amino acid contents of seed in soybean

Abstract

The application of useful genes from model plants to crops is an important step to verify its agricultural usefulness. SYNC1, an asparaginyl-tRNA synthetase gene, was previously identified through the Full-length cDNA Over-eXpressor gene (FOX gene-hunting system) of Arabidopsis cDNA by using super-growing root (SR) culture of Lotus corniculatus, and was suggested to have a potential in increasing some amino acid contents and plant biomass. To identify the functionality of SYNC1 gene in a typical legume crop soybean, the effects of its overexpression in transgenic plants to agricultural traits and free amino acid contents were evaluated. The transgenic soybean plants were produced from infected half-seed explants of 1 day old seedlings with the suspension of Agrobacterium tumefaciens harboring expression vector pB7WG2D-SYNC1. The transgenic plants that overexpressed SYNC1 gene had increased asparagine and lysine contents in matured seeds, and increased aspartate, lysine, alanine and histidine contents in germinated seeds. The changes in those free amino acid contents affected plant morphology and led to significant increase in plant length, number of branches and number of branch nodes as yield components of soybean. The transgenic plants also showed a tendency of higher number of pods, seeds and total seed weight per plant. These results showed that the overexpression of SYNC1 gene contributes on the increase of plant free amino acid contents and biomass, and this approach is expected to be applicable in other legumes, grain and forage crops.