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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Soybean Genomics & Improvement Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #355539
Research Project: Biotechnology Strategies for Understanding and Improving Disease Resistance and Nutritional Traits in Soybeans and Beans

Location: Soybean Genomics & Improvement Laboratory

Title: Quantitative proteomic analysis of low linolenic acid transgenic soybean reveals perturbations of fatty acid metabolic pathways

Author
item ISLAM, NAZRUL - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item BATES, PHILIP - Washington State University
item JOHN, MARIA - Us Forest Service (FS)
item Krishnan, Hari
item ZHANG, ZHANYUAN - University Of Missouri
item Luthria, Devanand - Dave
item Natarajan, Savithiry - Savi

Submitted to: Proteomics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/6/2019
Publication Date: 4/7/2019
Citation: Islam, N., Bates, P.D., John, M.K., Krishnan, H.B., Zhang, Z., Luthria, D.L., Natarajan, S.S. 2019. Quantitative proteomic analysis of low linolenic acid transgenic soybean reveals perturbations of fatty acid metabolic pathways. Proteomics. 19:1-11. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmic.201800379.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/pmic.201800379

Interpretive Summary: Soybean seeds are an important source of cooking oil. Commercial soybean oil is composed of 7-10% linolenic acid. This percentage is undesirable because linolenic acid lowers shelf life and lowers the stability of the oil at higher temperatures. To overcome this problem, researchers have improved soybeans using a biochemical technique called gene silencing to reduce the expression of soybean genes needed to produce linolenic acid. To extend our knowledge about these seeds and to explore their biochemical pathways for oil and protein production, we used mass spectrometry, an analytical technique for the study of molecules, to observe changes in the amounts of enzymes in low linolenic acid soybean seeds. We resolved the enzymatic pathways that produce oils in seeds and found the enzymes altered by gene silencing to explain decreases in linolenic acid production. These results will be useful to scientists at univeristies, companies, and public institutions who research and study the oil composition of soybean seeds and who work to develop new and improved soybean products of higher quality.

Technical Abstract: To understand the effect of fatty acid desaturase gene (GmFAD3) silencing on perturbation of fatty acid (FA) metabolic pathways, we compared the changes in protein profiling in control and low linolenic acid transgenic soybeans using tandem mass tag (TMT) based mass spectrometry. Protein profiling of the transgenic line unveiled changes in several key enzymes of FA metabolism. This includes enzymes of lower abundance; fabH, fabF and thioestrase associated with FA initiation, elongation and desaturation processes and LOX1_5, ACOX, ACAA1, MFP2 associated with ß-oxidation of a-linolenic acids pathways. These results are important for exploring how plants adjust in their biological processes when certain changes are induced in the genetic makeup. A complete understanding of these processes will aid researchers to alter genes to develop value-added soybean seeds.