Detection of Amino Acid QTL in Soybean Using the Universal Soy Linkage Panel 1.0 of 1536 SNPs.

            Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] is an integral component of the US agriculture industry and the use of soybean in animal feed is important to the viability of the agriculture industry.  Soybean meal is the largest source of protein in animal feed because of its amino acid profile.  However, few studies have been conducted to evaluate genomic regions controlling amino acid composition is soybean.  Designing soybean seed compositions that will benefit animal production is essential.  The objectives of this study were to identify genomic regions controlling essential and non-essential amino acid composition in soybean seed.  To achieve this objective, 282 F_5:9 recombinant inbred lines (RIL) developed from a cross of Essex x Williams 82 were used.  Ground soybean seed samples were analyzed for amino acids and a difference (p < 0.05) was found among genotypes in the population for all amino acid concentrations.  The Universal Soy Linkage Panel (USLP) 1.0 of 1536 SNPs was used to identify 480 polymorphic molecular genetic markers which were screened in DNA from progenies.  The software R/qtl was used to identify candidate quantative trait loci (QTL), which were confirmed using R/MQM.  A total of twenty four QTL were detected on linkage groups C2, K and L that explained >10% of the total phenotypic variation (R²) for a particular amino acid.  Phenotypic variation explained by an individual QTL ranged from 5.0 to 21.0%.  Using SNPs from the USLP 1.0 to detect QTL for amino acids in soybean provides additional information to the limited literature for this important component of soybean meal.