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Vegetable oils are commonly used in industries such as food processing, biofuels, soap and perfumes. The global market value of vegetable oil is estimated at $241.4 billion in 2021 and is expected to increase to $324.1 billion by 2027 [1]. Increasing vegetable oil production also helps the world to seek sustainable development and reduce the amount of arable land needed for oil-producing crops.

The global market value of vegetable oil will increase to US $324.1 billion in 2027. [1] trying to produce more oil in crop seeds is a major research hotspot in agriculture. However, most oil-producing crops-such as oil palm, soybean, sunflower, rapeseed, peanut-already contain a high proportion of oil in their fruits or seeds, so it is difficult to increase their oil content through traditional crop hybridization methods.

The secret to helping plants store more oil in their seeds lies in a plant protein called WRINKLED1 (WRI1). For more than two decades, scientists have confirmed that WRI1 plays an important role in controlling plant seed oil production.

Scientists at Singapore's Nanyang University of Technology (Nanyang Technological University,NTU) have successfully modified WRI1, a protein that controls oil accumulation in plant seeds and edible nuts. After this improvement was implemented in Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis thaliana), the oil in plant seeds increased by 15% to 18%.

This year, the team of Associate Professor Gao Yonggui of NTU School of Biological Sciences described and reported for the first time the high-resolution structure of WRI1, published in the journal Science Progress (Science Advances), detailing the molecular structure of WRI1 and how it binds to plant DNA to signal plants, thereby increasing seed oil content.

Screenshot of literature? reference [2] in order to increase vegetable oil production, the team modified WRI1 based on the atomic structure of the WRI1-DNA complex to enhance its affinity to DNA and increase oil production. In the course of the experiment, they selected some parts of the WRI1 to modify and produced several candidate WRI1.

The researchers then conducted further tests on these candidate WRI1 to assess their ability to activate plant cells to produce oil. The experimental results show that compared with the original WRI1, the DNA bound by the modified version of WRI1 increases ten times, and the oil content of the corresponding seeds is also higher.

Gao Yonggui said that to understand the process of plant oil production, we not only need to accurately see the structure of WRI1, but also need to understand how it combines with the relevant DNA. In this process, WRI1 protein is an important regulator, which can tell plants how much oil is stored in seeds. Their work is equivalent to first seeing the "lock" of WRI1, and then designing the "key" to unlock the potential of WRI1.

After analyzing the crystal structure of WRI1 protein and its binding double helix DNA chain at the atomic level, the team noted that the DNA binding domain was widely conserved. This means that there is almost no change in the WRI1 protein of different plants, and it may also be the common binding mechanism of many plants.

First, the crystal structure of WRI1 is used as the "target" to modify WRI1 to enhance the binding affinity between the protein and its target DNA, and then the "instruction" encoding the modified WRI1 protein is introduced into the target plant cell, and the plant will use this new "instruction set" when producing WRI1.

To observe how modified WRI1 affects oil accumulation, the researchers injected modified proteins and original proteins into Ben's tobacco leaves (Nicotiana benthamiana), respectively, and analyzed the levels of triglycerides (triacylglycerol, the main form of dietary lipids in fat and oil). Compared with the control plants injected with original WRI1, the plants treated with modified WRI1 protein could detect a more significant peak value of triglyceride.

Subsequent experiments showed that the oil content in Arabidopsis thaliana seeds in the treatment group was higher than that in the control group. The offspring of the transgenic plants also carry the same modified WRI1 protein and produce more oil in the seeds.

"We know that WRI1 is a protein that binds to plant DNA sequences and triggers a specific instruction chain that regulates the accumulation of oil in seeds. The stronger the binding of WRI1 to DNA in a particular region-the more oil plants concentrate in their seeds. This target DNA is highly conserved in many seed plants, meaning that many plants have exactly the same mechanism, so we choose to improve the part of WRI1 that binds to its target DNA, and we can easily transform our oil production improvements to many different types of crops in the future. " Professor Ma explained.

"Plant seed oil is essential to human diet and has many important industrial uses. Global demand for vegetable oil is increasing rapidly, and our research helps to sustainably improve seed oil production and potentially reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment." Professor Ma added.

Looking ahead, the team has patented this genetic modification method and is looking for industry partners to commercialize their inventions.

"in a world where agricultural land is limited, if we want to solve the problem of world hunger, we need advanced technology to grow more food with higher nutritional value. When we can increase the fat content in edible seeds and nuts, a person can eat less but still feel full because of increased calorie intake. So, instead of growing more crops to feed more people, we also tend to study ways to make crops more calorie and nutritious, so that the same amount of food can feed more people. " Professor Chen, a famous food safety expert, commented.

reference

Vegetable oil (palm oil, canola oil, coconut oil and soybean oil) market: Global Industry Trends, share, size, growth, opportunity and forecast 2022-2027. Research and Markets-Market Research Reports. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5633273/vegetable-oil-palm-oil-canola-oil-coconut-oil

[2] Qiao, Z., Kong, Q., Tee, W. T., Lim, A. R., Teo, M. X., Olieric, V.,... & Gao, Y. G. (2022). Molecular basis of the key regulator WRINKLED1 in plant oil biosynthesis. Science advances, 8 (34), eabq1211. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq121

[3] https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/970740

Research team

Yong-Gui Gao: Nanyang University of Technology (Nanyang Technological University)

(co) first author Zhu Qiao: Nanyang technological University of Singapore (Nanyang Technological University)

(co) first author Que Kong: Nanyang technological University of Singapore (Nanyang Technological University)

Paper information

Release of the journal Scientific Progress (Science Advances)

Release date: August 24, 2022

Paper title Molecular basis of the key regulator WRINKLED1 in plant oil biosynthesis

(DOI: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq1211)

The field of plant science

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: I am a scientist iScientist (ID:IamaScientist), compiler: cod, editor: Jin Xiaoming, typesetting: Yin Ningliu

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