High‐protein soybeans reveal increased carbon partitioning towards proteogenic amino acids

BACKGROUND: Information on the biochemical processes associated with higher protein content of soybean seed remains limited. To investigate the variation in the metabolic profiling of different newly developed breeding lines of soybean, we have selected three high-protein (HP) and low-protein (LP) soybean breeding lines. Metabolic profiling was performed by using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. RESULTS: NIR spectroscopy results showed differential accumulation of metabolities between the HP and LP soybean seeds. The metabolites that showed significant abundance were submitted to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) metabolic pathways. A perturbation of global metabolic pathways was observed between the HP and LP soybeans. The HP soybean seeds showed a significant increase in routing carbon towards the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycles, resulting in an increased content of proteogenic amino acids. Among the proteogenic amino acids, asparagine and arginine exhibited the most increased content in the HP soybean, along with methionine and other amino acids. CONCLUSIONS: The HP soybean lines appear to route more carbon towards arginine-asparagine metabolic pathways. This information is valuable for breeders and biotechnologists aiming to develop soybean varieties with improved nutritional traits. Published 2026. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.