From seed to whole plant: An innovative visual marker system to enhance selection efficiency in soybean genome editing
Published 01 April, 2026
Emerging genome editing tools, particularly CRISPR/Cas9, are facilitating functional genomics research and accelerating crop improvement. However, the detection and screening of transgenic lines remain major bottlenecks, being time-consuming, labor-intensive, and inefficient during transformation and subsequent mutation identification.
To that end, a team of researchers from China developed a novel visual system, visual soybean editing system (VSES) — a simple and efficient visualization system for soybean genome editing.
"The visual soybean editing system offers three main advantage. First, enhanced DsRed2 expression enables Cas9-containing seeds to be visually identified under natural light, removing the requirement for specialized equipment. Second, transgenic plants can be rapidly distinguished during the seedling stage based on stem and leaf color. And third, the VSES does not compromise genome editing efficiency," shares senior and corresponding author Xiangguo Liu, a professor at Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China.
"Future efforts will focus on optimizing the VSES4 system and extending its application to other crops, thereby advancing agricultural innovation and crop improvement," adds co-corresponding author Dongquan Guo, a professor at the same university.
The tea, reported their results in the KeAi's Journal of Integrative Agriculture.
Contact Authors:
Correspondence Xiangguo Liu, E-mail: lxgyyj@jaas.com.cn; Dongquan Guo, E-mail: xzgdq@126.com
Funder:
This work was supported by the Jilin Science and Technology Development Program, China (20240602032RC), the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Project, China (CXGC2024ZD001), the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Project, China (CXGC2024ZY012), and the Jilin Province Development and Reform Commission - Project for Improving the Independent Innovation Capacity of Major Grain Crops, China (2024C002).
Conflict of Interest:
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
See the Article:
Yan T W et al. 2026. From seed to whole plant: An innovative visual marker system to enhance selection efficiency in soybean genome editing. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 25(2): 820-823.