Abstract
Recently described gene E7 for photoperiod sensitivity in soybean is prospective for the development of early cultivars. Field trials of isolines differing in Е7/e7 revealed yield gain equal to 21% while maturity was delayed by 6 days. Weak effect (4-5 days of flowering delay) makes distinguishing of Е7 by means of hybridologic analysis somewhat complicated. Screening of germplasm collection for Е7 sources with SSR-markers allowed identification a number of cultivars possessing this allele within different maturity groups (00 to II).

Abstract
The steroid biosynthesis pathway is responsible for producing several important biochemicals and precursor molecules. The KEGG database renders an authoritative view of the interactions in this pathway. We used this and other online resources to design PCR primers based primarily on soybean expressed sequence tags (ESTs). A total of 50 gene-based primer pairs (38 soybean, 12 alternative) were tested for function and four polymorphism states on two soybean breeding lines. A total of nine genes exhibited a single, monomorphic amplification product and four amplified a single polymorphic fragment. The production of 13 multiple monomorphic products and ten multiple products that included at least one polymorphism was also observed. A total of 14 primer pairs failed to produce a clear amplification product. The sequences used to design these primers were tested against an initial scaffold build of soybean genomic sequences consisting of 950 Mbp of DNA. These data indicate that directed analysis of a biochemical pathway can yield multiple opportunities to identify specific genic polymorphisms in soybean, while taking into consideration the duplicated nature of the genome.