Soybean is a crop of importance economically and nutritionally in many parts of the world. Thanks to many new genes brought from genomic research, It is possible to introduce various candidate genes through genetic transformation to see the performance of the genes in field. In our lab, soybean transformations have been tried for last 10 years to probe the possibility of traits improvement by transformation of new gene into soybean. For this purpose, three different genes were transformed into Korean soybean variety, Kwangan. First, the gene that controls early flowering of plant was transformed into Kwangan. Second, a candidate gene for soybean mosaic virus (SMV) resistance was transformed to produce transgenic plants. Third, another candidate gene for drought tolerance was transformed. All the transgenic plants from three genes transformation were produced for their gene insertion and their expression using PCR, qRT-PCR. Further analysis including harvesting seeds is currently undertaken.

ORE7 gene incorporated into 3 different promoters including pCKLSL-35S, pCKLSL-TP and pCSENIF was transformed to Korean soybean variety Kwangan using highly efficient soybean transformation system. The gene is known to exhibit a delayed leaf senescence phenotype in Arabidopsis. Fourteen, Fifteen and nine transgenic plants were produced from pCKLSL-35S::ORE7, pCKLSL-TP::ORE7 and pCSENIF::ORE7, respectively. Moreover, transgenic plants were confirmed for gene introduction and their expression using PCR, qRT-PCR and RT-PCR. To identify the transgene insertion events, the analysis of flanking sequence was determined. As a results, T-DNA was integrated intergenically in transgenic line 1 of pCKLSL-35S::ORE7 and line 1 of pCSENIF::ORE7. Currently, flanking sequence analysis with pCKLSL-35S::ORE7, pCKLSL-TP::ORE7 and pCSENIF::ORE7 is carrying out to investigate the stable T-DNA insertions.