Abstract: Triacylglycerol is the major constituent of soybean oil. The glycerol triphosphate transferase （GPAT） gene is the key synthase gene in the process of triglyceride synthesis. Nowadays, the domestic demand for soybean oil is increasing day by day. How to increase the yield of soybean oil will become one of the important goals of oil crop breeding. In this paper, soybean oil, oil synthesis pathway and GPAT gene were reviewed, and the application of GPAT gene in the oil synthesis pathway was introduced. It lays a foundation for further screening transgenic high fat soybean lines which can be stably inherited and highly expressed. And it is of great significance to the production of soybean oil. Key words：soybean; soybean oil; triacylglycerol; GPAT ; synthetic pathway