As the most destructive pest disease for soybean, the soybean cyst nematode (SCN) costs huge losses every year. This project will generate a SCN resistant soybean variety using the artificial miRNA and short hairpin RNAi, which are the next generation RNAi technologies. In addition, this project will identify the important regulator controlling soybean?s responses to SCN infection and lead to a better understanding of mechanisms used by soybean to fight against SCN.

Preliminary results indicate that SCN resistance of transgenic plants is improved compared with the control plants. They are in the process of developing more transgenic lines and to verify the result.