Researchers Identify Gene That is a Key Determinant of Corn Oil Content and Composition

18 February 2008

Researchers at DuPont and Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont company, have identified a gene in corn that is a key determinant of oil content and composition. The work highlights the gene as a promising target for increasing oil and oleic-acid contents in other crops, developments of keen interest to the biofuels industry.

The DuPont team found that a high-oil QTL (quantitative trait locus—a region of DNA closely linked to the genes that underlie a specific trait) encodes an acyl-CoA:diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT1-2), which catalyzes the final step of oil synthesis.

We further show that a phenylalanine insertion in DGAT1-2 at position 469 (F469) is responsible for the increased oil and oleic-acid contents. The DGAT1-2 allele with F469 is ancestral, whereas the allele without F469 is a more recent mutant selected by domestication or breeding. Ectopic expression of the high-oil DGAT1-2 allele increases oil and oleic-acid contents by up to 41% and 107%, respectively.

A paper describing the work is published in the journal Nature Genetics.

Resources

• Peizhong Zheng et. al., A phenylalanine in DGAT is a key determinant of oil content and composition in maize. Nature Genetics, Published online: 17 February 2008 | doi:10.1038/ng.85