Simple soybean anything but - genetically, researcher says

PHYSORG.com
December 16th, 2008

(PhysOrg.com) -- Think humans are complex creatures? Consider the lowly soybean, said a Purdue University researcher. When it comes to genetics, the soybean plant is far more intricate than that of a human, said Scott Jackson, a plant genomics and cytogenetics researcher in Purdue's Department of Agronomy.

Jackson was among a team of researchers that mapped and sequenced the soybean genome for a project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI). The genome was released to the public this past week and can be viewed online at http://www.phytozome.net/soybean .

Soybean plants have tens of thousands more genes per cell nucleus than humans, even though the plant's complete genetic profile is much smaller, Jackson said.

Read the full story