Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L., Euphorbiaceae), a potential biodiesel plant, has created tremendous interest all over the world for the use of its seed oil as a commercial source of biodiesel. Due to the unreliability of oil content in its seeds and low economic returns, planting of jatropha in agriculture was restricted.

　  With an aim to understand genetic factors regulating storage lipid biosynthesis in jatropha seeds, Prof. Liu Aizhong and his research team of XTBG investigated the molecular basis of storage lipid accumulation during seed development.

They characterized the process of lipid accumulation in developing seeds of Jatropha curcas andrevealed the temporal expression profiles of 21 lipid genes in jatropha developing seeds.

 The study found that 15 lipid genes present up-regulated expression patterns correlated with storage lipids. They also identified 5 gene groups with their own temporal patterns.

Their investigation provided not only the initial information on promoter activity for 21 lipid genes, but also a first glimpse of the global patterns of gene expression at the time-course of seed development in jatropha.

These results would be critical to understand the molecular basis of lipid biosyntheses and identify the rate-limiting enzyme genes which might regulate storage lipid biosyntheses during seed development and give rise to the unreliability of oil content in jatropha seeds.

The study entitled “Expression profiles of genes involved in fatty acid and triacylglycerol synthesis in developing seeds of Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.)” has been published in Biomass and Bioenergy, 35 (5): 1683-1692. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2011.01.001