Soyasaponins are valuable compounds in certain drugs, industry, food additives and surfactants. Selecting cultivars with higher-soyasaponin content along with agronomic traits is a main goal for many soybean breeders. The aim of the present study was to identify the quantitative trait loci （QTLs） associated with total soyasaponin content through a F2 population, which was derived from a cross between Ha 91016 （higher soyasaponin content cultivar, 16.8 mg gl） and N98-9445A （lower soyasaponin content, only 5.7 mg g-l）. A genetic linkage map including a total of 162 simple sequence repeat markers was constructed, which covered the total length 2 735.5 cM, and the average distance between markers was 16.96 cM. Two QTLs associated with total soyasaponin content were identified. One, qSAP1 （located in sat_044-satt102 of linkage group （LG） K）, could explain 12.6% of phenotypic variance. The other, qSAP_2, was located between satt368 and sat413 of LG Dla, which could explain 15.8% of phenotypic variance. It was concluded that the two QTLs would have some potential value for marker-assisted selection for high-soyasaponin content breeding in soybeans.
