Soybean oil is the second most-produced vegetable oil worldwide. To enhance the nutritional quality and oxidative stability of soybean oil, many soybean breeding programs are trying to increase oleic acid content and reduce linoleic and linolenic acid contents. The fatty acid profile of soybean oil is controlled by many genes, including those which code for omega-3 and omega-6 desaturases. Mutations in GmFAD2-1 and GmFAD3 genes are widely studied and their combinations can produce soybean oil with high oleic and low linoleic and linolenic content. However, few studies evaluate the effect of these mutations on gene expression. Therefore, the present study sought to identify reference genes, evaluate the expression of GmFAD2-1 and GmFAD3 seed desaturase genes in thirteen wild-type and mutated soybean accessions, and associate the expression patterns with fatty acid composition and with the GmFAD2-1 and GmFAD3 genotypes. GmCONS7 and GmUKN2 were identified as the best reference genes for combined use to normalize data. The GmFAD2-1A mutation of PI603452 accession was associated with a decrease in gene expression of GmFAD2-1A; however, downregulation may not be due to the truncated enzyme structure alone. These results suggested that there are factors other than GmFAD2-1A and GmFAD2-1B that have a considerable effect on oleic content, at least in soybeans with mutations in these two genes.

大豆油是全球产量第二大的植物油。为了提高大豆油的营养品质和氧化稳定性，许多大豆育种项目正在尝试增加油酸含量并降低亚油酸和亚麻酸含量。大豆油的脂肪酸谱由许多基因控制，包括编码 omega-3 和 omega-6 去饱和酶的基因。 GmFAD2-1和GmFAD3基因的突变已被广泛研究，它们的组合可以产生高油酸和低亚油酸和亚麻酸含量的大豆油。然而，很少有研究评估这些突变对基因表达的影响。因此，本研究试图鉴定参考基因，评估 13 个野生型和突变大豆种质中GmFAD2-1和GmFAD3种子去饱和酶基因的表达，并将表达模式与脂肪酸组成以及GmFAD2-1和GmFAD3相关联。基因型。 GmCONS7和GmUKN2被确定为组合使用标准化数据的最佳参考基因。 PI603452的GmFAD2-1A突变与GmFAD2-1A基因表达的降低相关；然而，下调可能不仅仅是由于酶结构被截短。这些结果表明，除了GmFAD2-1A和GmFAD2-1B之外，还有其他因素对油酸含量有相当大的影响，至少在这两个基因突变的大豆中是这样。