Scientists seeking to unravel the details of how plants produce and accumulate oil have identified a new essential component of the assembly line. They discovered a particular sterol—a molecule related to cholesterol—that plays a key role in the formation of oil droplets.
"This research greatly extends our understanding of the molecular factors that govern the formation of lipid droplets, which are vital organelles for oil storage and metabolism in all eukaryotic organisms," said Changcheng Xu, a biologist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, who led the study. The findings, published in Nature Communications, may suggest new ways to engineer the oil content of a variety of plant tissues.
The work may be particularly important for informing genetic engineering strategies aimed at boosting the oil content of leaves and stems. These plant tissues usually do not accumulate oil, but they could be engineered as an abundant source of sustainable oils for making biofuels and other commodity products, the scientists say.
The findings also apply to the accumulation of oil in plant seeds, the main place oils naturally accumulate in plants. These natural reservoirs of plant oils provide nutrition for plant embryos and seedlings—as well as animals and humans.