High-quality genome of a modern soybean cultivar and resequencing of 547 accessions provide insights into the role of structural variation

Soybean provides protein, oil and multiple health-related compounds. Understanding the effects of structural variations (SVs) on economic traits in modern breeding is important for soybean improvement. Here we assembled the high-quality genome of modern cultivar Nongdadou2 (NDD2) and identified 25,814 SV–gene pairs compared to 29 reported genomes, with 13 NDD2-private SVs validated in 547 deep-resequencing (average = 18.05-fold) accessions, which advances our understanding of genomic variation biology. We found some insertions/deletions involved in seed protein and weight formation, an inversion related to adaptation to drought and a large intertranslocation implicated in a key divergence event in soybean. Of 749,714 SVs from 547 accessions, 6,013 were significantly associated with 22 yield-related and seed-quality-related traits determined in ten location × year environments. We uncovered 1,761 associated SVs that hit genes or regulatory regions, with 12 in GmMQT influencing oil and isoflavone contents. Our work provides resources and insights into SV roles in soybean improvement. High-quality genome of the modern soybean cultivar Nongdadou2 and deep resequencing of 547 accessions provide insights into the role of structural variations in soybean improvement.