Soybean, one of the most important global sources of protein and oil, is now the first legume species with a published complete draft genome sequence. The sequence and its analysis appear in the January 14 edition of the journal Nature.

The research team comprised 18 institutions, including the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Purdue University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The DOE, National Science Foundation, USDA and United Soybean Board supported the research.

“The soybean genome’s billion-plus nucleotides afford us a better understanding of the plant’s capacity to turn sunlight, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water, into concentrated energy, protein, and nutrients for human and animal use,” said Anna Palmisano, DOE Associate Director of Science for Biological and Environmental Research. “This opens the door to crop improvements that are sorely needed for energy production, sustainable human and animal food production, and a healthy environmental balance in agriculture worldwide.”

With the soybean genetic code now determined, the research community has access to a key reference for more than 20,000 legume species and can explore the extraordinary evolutionary innovation of nitrogen-fixing symbiosis that is so critically important to successful agricultural crop rotation strategies.

Jeremy Schmutz, the study’s first author and a DOE JGI scientist at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Alabama, said that the soybean sequencing was the largest plant project done to date at the DOE Joint Genome Institute. “It also happens to be the largest plant that’s ever been sequenced by the whole genome shotgun strategy—where we break it apart and reassemble it like a huge puzzle,” he said. Of the more than 20 other plant genomes taken on by the DOE JGI, those already sequenced include the black cottonwood (poplar) tree and the grain sorghum, both targeted because of their promise as biomass feedstocks for biofuels production.

“This is a milestone for soybean research and promises to usher in a new era in soybean agronomic improvement,” said co-author Gary Stacey, Director, Center for Sustainable Energy and Associate Director and National Center for Soybean Biotechnology, University of Missouri. “The genome provides a parts list of what it takes to make a soybean plant and, more importantly, helps to identify those genes that are essential for such important agronomic traits as protein and oil content.”

Soybean, one of the most important global sources of protein and oil, is now the first legume species with a published complete draft genome sequence.

From the sequence analysis, Stacey said that he and his colleagues have identified more than 46,000 genes of which 1,110 are involved in lipid metabolism. “These genes and their associated pathways are the building blocks for soybean oil content and represent targets that can be modified to bolster output and lead to the increase of the use of soybean oil for biodiesel production.”

While biodiesel from soybean oil represents a cleaner, renewable alternative to fossil fuels with desirable properties as a liquid transportation fuel, there simply is not enough oil produced by the plant to be a competitive gasoline on a gallons-of-fuel yield per acre. The availability of the soybean genome may provide some key solutions. “We can now zero in on the control points governing carbon flow towards protein and oil,” said Tom Clemente, Professor, Center for Biotechnology, Center for Plant Science Innovation at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. “With the combination of informatics, biochemistry and genetics we can target the development of a soybean with greater than 40 percent oil content.”

The availability of the soybean genome sequence has accelerated other soybean trait discovery efforts as well. For example, researchers have used the sequence to zero in on a mutation that can be used to select for a line that has lower levels of the sugar stachyose, which will improve the ability of animals and humans to digest soybeans.

In another effort, by comparing the genomes of soybean and corn, a single-base pair mutation was found that causes a reduction in phytate production in soybean. Phytate is the form in which phosphorous is stored in plant tissue. Because phytate is not absorbed by the animals that eat the feed, the unabsorbed phytate passes through the gastrointestinal tract, elevating the amount of phosphorus in the manure. Limiting phytate production in the soybean could reduce a major environmental runoff contaminant from swine and poultry waste.

Of additional importance for soybean farmers is that the genome sequence has provided access to the first resistance gene for the devastating disease Asian Soybean Rust (ASR). In countries where ASR is well established, soybean yield losses due to the disease can be as high as 80 percent.

Provided by DOE/Joint Genome Institute

Source: Physorg

Berlin, Jan 26(EFE). – The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) held today it’s Founding Conference in Bonn, in an act in which Spain was represented by the minister of Industry, Miguel Sebastian, and the secretary of State for the Climatic Change, María Teresa Ribera Rodríguez.    Â

IRENA is fruit of a German initiative, to which Spain and Denmark were added, and it has as objective the renewable energy promotion in the entire world and to overcome the obstacles that these find in its development.Â

Sebastian took advantage of his participation in the conference to appeal to all the countries to impel the clean energy sources together and to share experiences on this matter.Â

“Spain can contribute its experience in that field, since it is leader in some sectors as that of the wind energy”, Sebastian said.Â

Spain occupies the third world position at the moment in the use of the wind energy, behind United States and Germany.

The renewable energies have in Spain 20 percent of market quota regarding the electric power production.Â

The conference of Bonn had been prepared with a preparatory meeting in Madrid on last October, in which 51 countries gave their approval to the creation of IRENA.Â

To the conference of Bonn attend representatives of about 120 countries of which 50 signed the constituent agreement of IRENA.Â

Germany’s Federal Environment Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, underlined at the beginning of the conference that the development of the renewable energy in the entire world still has many obstacles, among those he highlighted that there are still many countries with conventional energy sources.Â

“A quick growth of energies as the solar or wind power continues being blocked by many obstacles”, Gabriel said in the inaugural conference of IRENA.Â

“The market continues being distorted by grants to conventional energy”, Gabriel added.Â

The obstacles that the renewable energies have, according to Gabriel, make necessary the creation of an international organization as IRENA that can channel the political will to overcome the difficulties.Â
Gabriel considers that a great breach still exists among the potential of the renewable energy and the relatively low market quota that they have at the moment.Â

Also, the minister is of the conviction that the renewable energy, besides being key for the protection of the climate, offer big economic possibilities for many countries.Â

“With the technical progresses, the renewable energy are every time a competitive alternative in front of the conventional energy. Also, the technology makes them cheaper year after year”, Gabriel said.Â
In 2008 150.000 million dollars were invested in the entire world, according to Gabriel, in the sector of the renewable energy.Â

The agency will try to foment the use of energies as the wind power or the solar to substitute to the coal, the petroleum and other conventional sources and to advise to the countries that have plans of developing technologies related with it.Â

IRENA is the first international organization that is exclusively in charge of renewable energies.Â
In the list of those that signed the agreement some important countries are missing as United States, Russia, China and Brazil.Â

Gabriel said in this respect, that in some countries a clarification process is still missing, but he expressed his conviction that soon the treaty will be subscribed by more states.Â
Tomorrow will take place the session of installation of the Preparatory Commission, to which all the countries members of the Agency will belong to, that in June will have to determine the headquarters of IRENA and to choose the first director.Â

Germany wants the headquarters of IRENA to stays in Bonn but other countries, among them Spain, have shown interest.Â

Among the candidates to be the first director of IRENA has been insistently mentioned the name of the german social democrat politician Hermann Scheer, that was one of the instigators of the creation of the agency. EFEÂ

Source: Finanzas