Xingzhu Feng

Hainan Institute of Biotechnology, Haikou, 570206, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Legume Genomics and Genetics, 2025, Vol. 16, No. 4   
Received: 20 May, 2025    Accepted: 05 Jul., 2025    Published: 28 Sep., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Isoflavones, a class of phytoestrogens abundant in soybean seeds, are recognized for their nutritional and functional roles in human health and plant physiology. This study synthesizes current knowledge on the genetic dissection of isoflavone content in soybean seeds, integrating evidence from natural variation studies, pathway dissection, and molecular engineering. We summarize the biosynthetic pathway and core genes controlling isoflavone accumulation, highlight quantitative trait loci and haplotype diversity uncovered by QTL mapping and GWAS, and discuss how polygenic architecture and regulatory networks shape seed-specific accumulation. Insights from multi-omics approaches are integrated with evidence on environmental and developmental modulation, providing a comprehensive view of genotype × environment interactions. A case study demonstrates how GWAS-guided discovery and validation have led to the development of high-isoflavone soybean lines, illustrating translational potential. Finally, we explore breeding and biotechnological strategies, including marker-assisted selection, genomic prediction, gene editing, and haplotype-aware breeding, alongside challenges in phenotyping, resource development, and data integration.

Soybean; Isoflavones; Genetic architecture; Multi-omics; Breeding strategies