title: Understanding and manipulating plant lipid composition: Metabolic engineering leads the way.
abstract: The manipulation of plant seed oil composition so as to deliver enhanced fatty acid compositions suitable for feed or fuel has long been a goal of metabolic engineers. Recent advances in our understanding of the flux of acyl-changes through different key metabolic pools such as phosphatidylcholine and diacylglycerol have allowed for more targeted interventions. When combined in iterative fashion with further lipidomic analyses, significant breakthroughs in our capacity to generate plants with novel oils have been achieved. Collectively these studies, working at the interface between metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, demonstrate the positive fundamental and applied outcomes derived from such research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 2JQ, UK. Electronic address: johnathan.napier@rothamsted.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Johnathan A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Napier
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 2JQ, UK.
authors.forename: Richard P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Haslam
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 2JQ, UK.
authors.forename: Frederic
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Beaudoin
authors.affiliation: Center for Plant Science Innovation and Department of Biochemistry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Beadle Center, 1901 Vine St, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
authors.forename: Edgar B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Cahoon
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D008055:Lipids / Q000737:chemistry*; D060847:Metabolic Engineering; D010944:Plants / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids