Mutant Sunflowers with High Concentration of Saturated Fatty Acids in the Oil

Abstract

Development of cultivars of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) with increased levels of saturated fatty acids could increase the utility of the oil for specific edible purposes. The primary objective of this research was to induce variability for these traits by using mutagenesis. Four sunflower mutants with altered seed fatty acid compositions have been isolated by screening single M2 and M3 seeds from plants obtained from mutagenized seeds utilizing ethyl methanesulfonate, sodium azide, and x‐rays. The mutant lines included CAS‐5, which has an oil with a fivefold increase (252 g kg−1) in palmitic acid (16:0) and the appearance of palmitoleic acid (16:1; 37 g kg−1); and CAS‐3, CAS‐4, and CAS‐8, which have from two to six times (99–260 g kg−1) the stearic acid (18:0) content normally observed in the oil of cultivated sunflower. The dramatic increase in levels of either 16:0 or 18:0 were at the expense of oleic (18:1) and linoleic (18:2) acids. The relative proportion of 18:1 to 18:2 varied with the mutants. All showed variation in fatty acid composition among the seeds of the original plant, which indicated that the fatty acid changes were controlled by the genotype of the embryo. The bimodal distribution in fatty acid composition of CAS‐3 and CAS‐5 seeds suggested that major recessive genes are involved in the control of these characters.