Plant scientists are seeking ways to increase seed oil production, and researchers at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory may have found the molecular factors that limit the oil production of oilseed plants.
According to John Shanklin, a biochemist at Brookhaven, an enzyme called ACCase—a protein containing four subunits—determines the rate of oil production in oilseed crops. Shanklin and his research team had already determined that feeding fatty acids to oil-producing plants inhibited the activity of ACCase, causing oil production to slow down or, in some instances, completely shut down. But he and his colleagues were perplexed as to why oilseed plants seem to be self-limiting oil production in the absence of excess fatty acids. Shanklin and co-researchers suspected that an inactive subunit in the enzyme ACCase could be responsible for limiting oil production in oilseeds.
After identifying the genes that code for the inactive subunits in ACCase, Shanklin’s research team obtained oilseed plants in which those genes were disabled. When the researchers compared oilseed plants with disabled ACCase inactive-subunit genes to regular oilseed plants under normal conditions, they found that the disabled-gene plants had greater oil content. Thus, disabling the genes for inactive subunits of ACCase in oilseed plants significantly improves the oil production of oilseeds. According to Shanklin, “disabling the genes for those inactive subunits is like taking the brakes off the car, revealing the motor’s true potential.”
Source: IFT
