Abstract
Vegetable oils are one of the main agricultural commodities. Demand has been increasing steadily over the last five decades and, with finite land available, it is vital that we increase productivity. My laboratory has focused on the regulation of plant lipid metabolism and, as part of this work, we identified diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) as important at regulating carbon flux during oil accumulation. This led to collaborations with Randy Weselake's research group when we quantified the importance of DGAT in oilseed rape by using flux control analysis. Later, with David Taylor, we showed that over-expression of DGAT boosted oil accumulation in field-grown crops by around 8%. These studies led to a multitude of experiments with different oil crops, such as oil palm and soybean, as well as many rewarding collaborations with Randy.
Highlights
Lipids have several major roles in organisms—as storage compounds, as major components of membranes, as lipid-derived signaling molecules and as surface components (Gunstone et al, 2007; Gurr et al, 2016)
This study showed the steady increase in TAG during the period of rapid development (20–40 days after pollination (DAP)) but, unexpectantly, there was an increase in diacylglycerol (DAG) during this period (Table 1) (Perry and Harwood, 1993a). We interpreted this transient accumulation of DAG as indicating that the activity of diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) might limit TAG synthesis at times of high lipid accumulation (Perry and Harwood, 1993a)
We used a version of Metabolic control analysis (MCA) termed “Bottom-Up” Control Analysis (BUCA) where a particular reaction is targeted by use of a specific inhibitor or other means of altering it
Summary
Lipids have several major roles in organisms—as storage compounds (usually triacylglycerol [TAG]), as major components of membranes, as lipid-derived signaling molecules and as surface components (waxes, cutin and suberin in plants) (Gunstone et al, 2007; Gurr et al, 2016). This study showed the steady increase in TAG during the period of rapid development (20–40 days after pollination (DAP)) but, unexpectantly, there was an increase in diacylglycerol (DAG) during this period (Table 1) (Perry and Harwood, 1993a) We interpreted this transient accumulation of DAG as indicating that the activity of diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) might limit TAG synthesis at times of high lipid accumulation (Perry and Harwood, 1993a). One of the pieces of evidence to indicate that DGAT could exhibit the most flux control within the Kennedy pathway (during rapid accumulation of seed oil) was that only DAG accumulated significantly during the radiolabeling experiments (Perry and Harwood, 1993b) We followed this observation up by using novel NMR techniques, together with our colleagues in Grenoble (Perry et al, 1999). Data taken from Perry and Harwood (1993a)
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