XVI International Botanical Congess

Glycinin (11S globulin) and beta-conglycinin (7S globulin) are the major storage proteins of soybean. Five and three subunits are identified as those of glycinin and beta-conglycinin, respectively. Many molecular species with various subunit compositions are present. To elucidate three dimensional structures and structure-function relationships of soybean globulins, a single molecular species composed of a kind of subunit is required. For this, we employed a mutant soybean containing such beta-conglycinin and an E. coli expression system, and succeeded to get crystals and solve the three dimensional structures and the structure-function relationships of some of the native and the recombinant soybean globulins. We will descrive these in detail.