Biotechnology of oil palm: strategies towards manipulation of lipid content and composition

Abstract

Oil palm is a major economic crop for Malaysia. The major challenges faced by the industry are labor shortage, availability of arable land and unstable commodity price. This has caused the industry to diversify its applications into higher value products besides increasing its yield. While conventional breeding has its limitations, biotechnology was identified as one of the tools for overcoming the above challenges. Research on biotechnology of oil palm began more than two decades ago leveraging a multidisciplinary approach involving biochemical studies, gene and promoter isolation, transformation vector construction and finally genetic transformation to produce the targeted products. The main target of oil palm biotechnology research is to increase oleic acid in the mesocarp. Other targets are stearic acid, palmitoleic acid, ricinoleic acid, lycopene (carotenoid) and biodegradable plastics. Significant achievements were reported for the biochemical studies, isolation of useful oil palm genes and characterization of important promoters. A large number of transformation constructs for various targeted products were successfully produced using the isolated oil palm genes and promoters. Finally transformation of these constructs into oil palm embryogenic calli was carried out while the regeneration of transgenic oil palm harboring the useful genes is in progress.

Differential Expression Analysis of Oil Palm Fatty Acid Biosynthetic Enzymes With Gel-Free Quantitative Proteomics

“…Commercially refined palm oil from fruit mesocarp contains predominantly palmitic acid (44%), oleic acid (39%) and stearic acid (5%) (Dauqan et al, 2011;Sundram et al, 2003;Sundram, 2000). Genetic engineering has been used to generate transgenic oil palms containing more high-value fatty acids to boost sustainability (Parveez et al, 2015). Biochemical studies of lipid biosynthetic pathway revealed significant flux control in the fatty acid biosynthesis over lipid assembly and the results also suggested that manipulation of a single enzyme step would…”

“…is a highly valuable economic crop in Malaysia and is the world's highest yielding oil-bearing crop (Parveez et al, 2015;Singh et al, 2013b). Malaysian plantations produce 3.5 t of versatile and nutritious palm oil per hectare annually (Kirkland, 2011).…”

Construction of a Vector Containing Hygromycin (Hpt) Gene Driven by Double 35s (2xcamv35s) Promoter for Oil Palm Transformation

“…This requires the palm oil industry to tackle the challenges in meeting the growing worldwide demand for palm oil as food, biodiesel and industrial non-food uses, such as oleochemicals. Improvement of oil palm crop by genetic engineering could have an important role to play in fulfilling the growing global need for oils and fats (Parveez et al, 2015a). Methods for the genetic engineering of oil palm will have to be developed in order to face future challenges.…”

“…Effective selection is an absolute requirement for successful transformation and regeneration of stable transgenic oil palm (Parveez et al, 2015a). Selection process requires suitable selection agents such as herbicide and antibiotic supplemented in selection media, allowing transformed cells to grow without any deleterious effects.…”

Plant lipid biology and biotechnology

“…In addition, there is a compendium of literature sources that describe the basis for lipid composition of relevant mutants. Both Parveez et al (2014) and Goold et al (2014) review cover storage and neutral lipids in oil palm and microalgae, respectively. Parveez et al describe advances in biotechnology of oil palm that includes biochemical studies, gene and promoter isolation, vector construction for transformation, and genetic transformation technology.…”