here - First Legume Society Conference (LSC1)

Book of Abstracts First Legume Society Conference 2013: A Legume Odyssey Novi Sad, Serbia, 9-11 May 2013
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Improvement of soybean food safety: Reducing heavy metals and food allergens
Johann Vollmann 1 , Daisuke Watanabe 1 , Martin Pachner 1 , Tomas Losak 2
1
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU), Department of Crop Sciences, Tulln,
Austria
2
Mendel University in Brno, Department of Agrochemistry, Soil Science, Microbiology and Plant Nutrition,
Brno, Czech Republic
Exploiting genetic variation in food safety characters is an important option for soybean (Glycine
max [L.] Merr.) breeding in order to improve the overall quality of soyfoods. For instance, in soyoil
based products, reduction of linolenic acid has contributed to reduced trans-fatty acid
formation during food processing. At present, soybean genetic variation is being utilized to
reduce the uptake of cadmium and to select hypo-allergenic soybeans. Based on a major QTL for
cadmium accumulation in the seed mapped with microsatellite markers, soybean genotypes with
either high or reduced cadmium uptake were grown in pots with different cadmium levels or in
field experiments at three locations, and seed cadmium content was determined analytically.
Cadmium accumulation was reduced by about 50% in genotypes carrying the allele for low
cadmium uptake at the Cda1 locus, whereas other genotypes had higher cadmium concentrations
which partly exceeded the maximum level of 0.20 mg kg -1 tolerated for food uses in European
Commission regulation 1881/2006 and WHO guidelines. In addition, the reduction of soybean
allergenicity is a highly desirable goal in the food industry, as soy protein is present in many food
products. A Chinese soybean landrace from a genebank collection has recently been identified to
carry a null allele at the P34 protein locus, which is the immunodominant soybean allergen.
Therefore, microsatellite markers are currently identified which allow for the introgression of the
P34 null allele into early maturity germplasm. Thus, soybean breeding can significantly contribute
to various aspects of food safety.
66