Overexpression of a Chromatin Architecture-Controlling ATPG7 has Positive Effect on Yield Components in Transgenic Soybean

AT-hook proteins of plant have shown to be involved in growth and development through the modification of chromatin architecture to co-regulate transcription of genes. Recently, many genes encoding AT-hook protein have been identified and their involvement in senescence delay is investigated. In this study, soybean transgenic plants overexpressing chromatin architecture-controlling ATPG7 gene was produced by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and investigated for the positive effect on the important agronomic traits mainly focusing on yield-related components. A total of 27 transgenic soybean plants were produced from about 400 explants. $T_1$ seeds were harvested from all transgenic plants. In the analysis of genomic DNAs from soybean transformants, ATPG7 and Bar fragments were amplified as expected, 975 bp and 408 bp in size, respectively. And also exact gene expression was confirmed by reverse transcriptase-PCR (RT-PCR) from transgenic line #6, #7 and #8. In a field evaluation of yield components of ATPG7 transgenic plants ($T_3$), higher plant height, more of pod number and greater average total seed weight were observed with statistical significance. The results of this study indicate that the introduction of ATPG7 gene in soybean may have the positive effect on yield components.