ABSTRACT

Genetically modified (GM) soybeans provide a huge amount of food for human consumption and animal feed. However, the possibility of unexpected effects of transgenesis has increased food safety concerns. High-throughput sequencing profiling provides a potential approach to directly evaluate unintended effects caused by foreign genes. In this study, we performed transcriptomic analyses to evaluate differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in individual soybean tissues, including cotyledon (C), germ (G), hypocotyl (H), and radicle (R), instead of using the whole seed, from four GM and three non-GM soybean lines. A total of 3,351 DEGs were identified among the three non-GM soybean lines. When the GM lines were compared with their non-GM parents, 1,836 to 4,551 DEGs were identified. Furthermore, Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of the DEGs showed more abundant categories of GO items (199) among non-GM lines than between GM lines and the non-GM natural varieties (166). Results of Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis showed that most KEGG pathways were the same for the two types of comparisons. The study successfully employed RNA sequencing to assess the differences in gene expression among four tissues of seven soybean varieties, and the results suggest that transgenes do not induce massive transcriptomic alterations in transgenic soybeans compared with those that exist among natural varieties. This work offers empirical evidence to investigate the genomic-level disparities induced by genetic modification in soybeans, specifically focusing on seed tissues.

 抽象的

转基因（GM）大豆为人类消费和动物饲料提供了大量食物。然而，转基因产生意外影响的可能性增加了食品安全问题。高通量测序分析提供了一种直接评估外源基因引起的意外影响的潜在方法。在这项研究中，我们进行转录组分析来评估单个大豆组织中的差异表达基因（DEG），包括子叶（C）、胚芽（G）、下胚轴（H）和胚根（R），而不是使用整个种子，来自四个转基因和三个非转基因大豆品系。在三个非转基因大豆品系中总共鉴定出 3,351 个 DEG。当将转基因品系与其非转基因亲本进行比较时，发现了 1,836 至 4,551 个 DEG。此外，DEG 的基因本体论 (GO) 分析显示，非转基因品系中的 GO 项目类别 (199) 比转基因品系和非转基因天然品种之间的 GO 项目类别 (166) 更丰富。京都基因与基因组百科全书（KEGG）分析结果显示，两种比较的大多数 KEGG 通路是相同的。该研究成功地利用RNA测序来评估七个大豆品种的四个组织之间基因表达的差异，结果表明，与天然品种之间存在的转录组改变相比，转基因不会引起转基因大豆的大规模转录组改变。这项工作为研究大豆基因改造引起的基因组水平差异提供了经验证据，特别关注种子组织。