Nematode Resistance in Soybean - Translational Genomics for Crop Breeding: Biotic Stress - page 117

crop improvement by bioengineering, especially
through transgenic approaches.

assisted breeding or transgenic approaches, we
anticipate we will soon make a breakthrough on
improving nematode resistance in soybeans.

Future Prospects for Research on
Soybean Nematode Resistance

Acknowledgments

Currently, only limited resources of resis-
tance genes are available for soybean improve-
ment through breeding or transgenic approaches
(Vuong et al. 2010). Identifying and cloning
more novel QTL relevant to nematode resis-
tance will help solve this problem. In the past,
little progress was made on the identification
of novel nematode resistance QTL, especially
the ones with large effects (Concibido et al.
2004). The possible reason is that soybean scien-
tists selected soybean materials with close back-
grounds in those experiments because no hap-
lotypic data were available at that time. Now
this difficulty can be overcome with the develop-
ment of high-throughput genotyping technology.
It can be predicted that more QTL-conferring
soybean nematode resistance can be identified
and further cloned in the near future.
Beside identifying new soybean resistance
genes, elucidating how parasitic nematodes suc-
cessfully establish their life cycle in hosts is
another aspect of research on soybean nematode
resistance. Until now, many nematode effectors
and their interaction proteins in the host have
been identified (Gheysen and Mitchum 2011).
The primary mechanisms underlying soybean-
nematode interaction have been revealed, such
as the involvement of the cell wall pathway and
the important role of the plant hormone auxin.
However, those studies were mainly conducted
using the model plant Arabidopsis. Whether
the same mechanism exists in soybean is still
not clear. Confirming the mechanism in soy-
bean and directly identifying soybean genes
involved in soybean-nematode interaction might
be future objectives that soybean scientists want
to achieve.
Scientists have gained more and more
research results dealing with soybean nema-
tode resistance. With the application of omics-

The authors would like to thank Brendan Gib-
bons and Abby Isabelle for their critical read-
ing and editing of the manuscript. Funding sup-
port to our research programs from the Missouri
Soybean Merchandising Council (MSMC), the
United Soybean Board (USB), and the National
Center for Soybean Biotechnology (NCSB),
University of Missouri is gratefully acknowl-
edged.

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