Wang Jie, Zhang Li, Wang Shoudong, Wang Xin, Li Suning, Gong Pingping, Bai Mengyan, Paul Arnav, Tvedt Nathan, Ren Hengrui, Yang Maoxiang, Zhang Zhihui, Zhou Shaodong, Sun Jiayi, Wu Xianjin, Kuang Huaqin, Du Zhenghua, Dong Yonghui, Shi Xiaolei, Li Meina, Shukla Diwakar, Yan Long, Guan Yuefeng
College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China.
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Adaptation and Molecular Design, Innovative Center of Molecular Genetics and Evolution, School of Life Sciences, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510006, China.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2025 Jun;12(23):e2500290. doi: 10.1002/advs.202500290. Epub 2025 May 14.
Enhancing the oil or protein content of soybean, a major crop for oil and protein production is highly desirable. GmSWEET10a encodes a sugar transporter that is strongly selected during domestication and breeding, increasing seed size and oil content. GmSWEET10b is functionally similar to GmSWEET10a, yet has not been artificially selected. Here, AlphaFold is used to find that C-terminal variants of GmSWEET10a can endow enhanced or reduced transport activity. Guided by AlphaFold, the functionality is improved for GmSWEET10a in terms of oil content through gene editing. Furthermore, novel GmSWEET10b haplotypes possessing strengthened or weakened sugar-transport capabilities that are absent in nature are engineered. Consequently, soybean oil content or protein content in independent GmSWEET10b gene-edited lines during multi-year and multi-site field trials is consistently increased, without negatively affecting yield. The study demonstrates that the combination of AlphaFold-guided protein design and gene editing has the potential to generate novel beneficial alleles, which can optimize protein function in the context of crop breeding.
提高大豆（一种用于生产油脂和蛋白质的主要作物）的油脂或蛋白质含量是非常可取的。GmSWEET10a编码一种糖转运蛋白，在驯化和育种过程中受到强烈选择，增加了种子大小和油脂含量。GmSWEET10b在功能上与GmSWEET10a相似，但尚未经过人工选择。在这里，利用AlphaFold发现GmSWEET10a的C端变体可以赋予增强或降低的转运活性。在AlphaFold的指导下，通过基因编辑提高了GmSWEET10a在油脂含量方面的功能。此外，还设计了具有自然界中不存在的增强或减弱糖转运能力的新型GmSWEET10b单倍型。因此，在多年多点的田间试验中，独立的GmSWEET10b基因编辑品系中的大豆油脂含量或蛋白质含量持续增加，且对产量没有负面影响。该研究表明，AlphaFold指导的蛋白质设计和基因编辑相结合有潜力产生新的有益等位基因，从而在作物育种中优化蛋白质功能。
