Salt Tolerance Mechanism and Molecular Markers of Genes Associated with Salt Tolerance in Soybean

The salt tolerance in soybean involves various physiological mechanisms or metabolic pathways. The salt-tolerant soybean cultivars can grow better under high salt stress by regulating the intake and transportation of Na⁺, chloride exclusion, osmotic adjustment, changes of membrane lipids and enhancing activities of some enzymes, such as glutathion reductase, SOD and so on. A population of wild soybean expressed higher level of salt tolerance for its salt glands. Under salt stress, soybean and Bradyrhizobium can affect each other, so soybean-Bradyrhizobium system can respond to salinity as a whole. With the technology of molecular biology applied to salt-tolerant soybean, a few molecular markers associated with salt tolerant genes have been identified.