A high throughput soybean gene identification system developed using Soybean Yellow Common Mosaic Virus (SYCMV)

Soybean yellow common mosaic virus (SYCMV) was recently reported from Korea, and a subsequent survey of soybean fields found that SYCMV, Soybean yellow mottle mosaic virus (SYMMV), and Soybean mosaic virus (SMV) infections were widespread. SYCMV has recently been developed into a Virus Inducing Gene Silencing (VIGS) vector for use as a reverse genetics tool for soybean, and here we report a modified SYCMV VIGS vector containing a new restriction enzyme site in the 3′ non-coding region into which we inserted the Gateway system. Ultrasonically generated c.300 bp random fragments of Glycine max cDNA were inserted into the SYCMV VIGS vector, and individual colonies containing G. max cDNA were inoculated to cultivar Williams 82. We monitored the phenotype of inoculated soybean, and selected obvious visible phenotypes caused by SYCMV-induced gene silencing which could enable annotation of gene function of unknown gene fragments inserted into SYCMV. Here, we describe development of a high-throughput SYCMV VIGS vector for gene function identification in soybean.