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Breeding high-stearic oilseed rape (Brassica napus) with high- and low-erucic background using optimised promoter-gene constructs

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Abstract

Seed lipids of oilseed rape (Brassica napus) usually contain small proportions (<3%) of stearic acid. The objective of this study was to increase the content of stearic fatty␣acid in rapeseed oil. An antisense down-regulation of the endogenous stearoyl-ACP desaturase (SAD) catalysing the reaction step from stearic to oleic acid in two different genetic backgrounds was studied. The result of down-regulation of the SAD yielded an about 10-fold increase of stearic acid from 3.7% up to 32% in single seeds of transgenic low-erucic acid rapeseed (LEAR), while high-erucic acid rapeseed (HEAR) showed a 4-fold increase of C18:0 from 1% up to 4%. It could be shown in pooled T2 seed material of LEAR rapeseed, that the stearic acid content is highly correlated with the down-regulation of SAD as indicated by the␣stearate desaturation proportion (SDP). The importance of the promoter strength for the alteration of a trait was confirmed in this study as no change in the fatty acid composition of transgenic plants was achieved with gene constructs controlled by the weak FatB4 seed-specific promoter from Cuphea lanceolata.

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Acknowledgements

This research was jointly funded by the German Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture (BMVEL), the Fachagentur für Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V. (FNR, Project No. 97 NR 079-F), Guelzow, and Norddeutsche Pflanzenzucht Hans-Georg Lembke KG, Hohenlieth, Germany. The authors thank Sonja Weber, Stavros Tzigos, Petra Degen and Marinela-Gabriela Ciobanu for their excellent technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Breeding, Institute of Crop Science and Plant Breeding I, Justus-Liebig-University, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26–32, D-35392, Giessen, Germany

    M. Karim Zarhloul, Christof Stoll, Wilfried Lühs & Wolfgang Friedt

  2. Federal Centre for Breeding Research on Cultivated Plants, IRZ Geilweilerhof, D-76833, Siebeldingen, Germany

    Alexandra Syring-Ehemann, Ludger Hausmann & Reinhard Töpfer

Authors
  1. M. Karim Zarhloul
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  2. Christof Stoll
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  3. Wilfried Lühs
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  4. Alexandra Syring-Ehemann
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  5. Ludger Hausmann
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  6. Reinhard Töpfer
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  7. Wolfgang Friedt
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Correspondence to Wolfgang Friedt.

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Karim Zarhloul and Christof Stoll have contributed in equal parts to the present work

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Karim Zarhloul, M., Stoll, C., Lühs, W. et al. Breeding high-stearic oilseed rape (Brassica napus) with high- and low-erucic background using optimised promoter-gene constructs. Mol Breeding 18, 241–251 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-006-9032-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-006-9032-3

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