Flowering time and plant height are key agronomic traits that directly affect soybean (Glycine max) yield. APETALA1 (AP1) functions as a class A gene in the ABCE model for floral organ development, helping to specify carpel, stamen, petal, and sepal identities. There are four AP1 homologs in soybean, all of which are mainly expressed in the shoot apex. Here, we used clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) – CRISPR‐associated protein 9 technology to generate a homozygous quadruple mutant, gmap1, with loss‐of‐function mutations in all four GmAP1 genes. Under short‐day (SD) conditions, the gmap1 quadruple mutant exhibited delayed flowering, changes in flower morphology, and increased node number and internode length, resulting in plants that were taller than the wild type. Conversely, overexpression of GmAP1a resulted in early flowering and reduced plant height compared to the wild type under SD conditions. The gmap1 mutant and the overexpression lines also exhibited altered expression of several genes related to flowering and gibberellic acid metabolism, thereby providing insight into the role of GmAP1 in the regulatory networks controlling flowering time and plant height in soybean. Increased node number is the trait with the most promise for enhancing soybean pod number and grain yield. Therefore, the mutant alleles of the four AP1 homologs described here will be invaluable for molecular breeding of improved soybean yield.

中文翻译：

---

大豆AP1同源物控制开花时间和植物高度。

开花时间和株高是直接影响大豆（关键农艺性状大豆）产量。APETALA1（AP1）在ABCE模型中用作花卉器官发育的A类基因，有助于指定心皮，雄蕊，花瓣和萼片的身份。大豆中有四个AP1同源物，它们均主要在茎尖表达。在这里，我们使用成簇的规则间隔的短回文重复序列（CRISPR）– CRISPR相关蛋白9技术生成了纯合子四倍体突变体gmap1，在所有四个GmAP1基因中都有功能丧失突变。在短期（SD）条件下，gmap1四倍体突变体表现出延迟开花，花形变化，节数和节间长度增加，从而导致植物比野生型高。相反，与SD条件下的野生型相比，GmAP1a的过表达导致早期开花并降低了株高。的gmap1突变体和过表达株系还表现出相关的开花和赤霉酸代谢，由此提供的洞察的作用的几个基因的改变的表达GmAP1在调控网络控制开花时间和株高大豆。增加结节数是提高大豆荚果数和谷物产量的最有希望的性状。因此，四个AP1的突变等位基因 本文所述的同系物对于提高大豆产量的分子育种将是无价的。