title: Effects of Overexpression ofWRI1and Hemoglobin Genes on the Seed Oil Content ofLepidium campestre.
abstract: The wild species field cress (Lepidium campestre), belonging to the Brassicaceae family, has potential to be developed into a novel oilseed- and catch crop, however, the species needs to be further improved regarding some important agronomic traits. One of them is its low oil content which needs to be increased. As far as we know there is no study aiming at increasing the oil content that has been reported in this species. In order to investigate the possibility to increase the seed oil content in field cress, we have tried to introduce theArabidopsis WRINKLED1(AtWRI1) or hemoglobin (Hb) genes from eitherArabidopsis thaliana(AtHb2) orBeta vulgaris(BvHb2) into field cress with the seed specific expression. The hypothesis was that the oil content would be increased by overexpressing these target genes. The results showed that the oil content was indeed increased by up to 29.9, 20.2, and 25.9% in the transgenic lines expressingAtWRI1, AtHb2, andBvHb2, respectively. The seed oil composition of the transgenic lines did not significantly deviate from the seed oil composition of the wild type plants. Our results indicate that genetic modification can be used in this wild species for its fast domestication into a future economically viable oilseed and catch crop.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Alnarp, Sweden.
authors.forename: Emelie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ivarson
authors.affiliation: Department of Pure and Applied Biochemistry, Lund University Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Nélida
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Leiva-Eriksson
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Alnarp, Sweden.
authors.forename: Annelie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ahlman
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Alnarp, Sweden.
authors.forename: Selvaraju
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kanagarajan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pure and Applied Biochemistry, Lund University Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Leif
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bülow
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Alnarp, Sweden.
authors.forename: Li-Hua
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Zhu
keywords: Lepidium campestre; WRINKLED1; hemoglobin; metabolic engineering; oil content