Open Access

REVIEW

Functional Role of miRNAs: Key Players in Soybean Improvement

Kapil Gupta¹, Sujit Kumar Mishra², Shubhra Gupta³, Saurabh Pandey⁴, Jogeswar Panigrahi^5,*, Shabir Hussain Wani^6,*
1 CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow, 226015, India
2 Department of Zoology, School of Applied Sciences, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Bhubaneswar, 751009, India
3 Department of Biotechnology, Central University of Rajasthan, Ajmer, 305817, India
4 Plant Molecular Biology, International Center for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology, New Delhi, 110067, India
5 Department of Biosciences and Bioinformatics, Khallikote University, Berhampur, 761008, India
6 Mountain Research Center for Field Crops, Khudwani, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Anantnag, 192101, India
* Corresponding Authors: Shabir Hussain Wani. Email: ; Jogeswar Panigrahi. Email:

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2021, 90(5), 1339-1362. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2021.015239

Received 03 December 2020; Accepted 27 February 2021; Issue published 27 May 2021

Abstract

Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) is an agro-economic crop growing across the world to cater nutrition for both human and animal feed due to the high oil and protein content in its edible seeds. The genes and QTLs associated with important agronomic traits in this crop have already been identified and validated for soybean cyst nematode (SCN), Phytophthora root and stem rot, Pythium root rot and aphid resistance, seed quality, nutrient values, and also employed for genetic improvement in soybean. In the last decade, micro RNAs (miRNAs) have been considered the effector molecules, so the detection and characterization of novel miRNAs in soybean have been taken up by several workers. The advancement in the strategy of sequencing and tools of bioinformatics during last decade has contributed to the discovery of many soybean miRNAs, thus miRNA can be used as a tool in molecular breeding studies, and this has opened new vistas for miRNA mediated genetic improvement of soybean to augment crop productivity as well as nutritional quality. This review addresses the current state of understanding of miRNAmediated stress responses, nutrient acquisition, plant development and crop production processes in soybean.

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Keywords

Soybean; miRNA; quality improvement; plant development; genetic engineering; molecular breeding

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