The fatty acid elongase 1 (FAE1) gene is a key gene in the erucic acid biosynthesis in rapeseed. The complete coding sequences of the FAE1 gene were isolated separately from eight high and zero erucic acid rapeseed cultivars (Brassica napus L.). A four base pair deletion between T1366 and G1369 in the FAE1 gene was found in a number of the cultivars, which leads to a frameshift mutation and a premature stop of the translation after the 466th amino acid residue. This deletion was predominantly found in the C-genome and rarely in the A-genome of B. napus. Expression of the gene isoforms with the four base pair deletion in a yeast system generated truncated proteins with no enzymatic activity and could not produce very long chain fatty acids as the control with an intact FAE1 gene did in yeast cells. In the developing rape seeds the FAE1 gene isoforms with the four base pair deletion were transcribed normally but failed to translate proteins to form a functional complex. The four base pair deletion proved to be a mutation responsible for the low erucic acid trait in rapeseed and independent from the point mutation reported by Han et al. (Plant Mol Biol 46:229-239, 2001).

Background: The upgrading of rapeseed cultivars has resulted in a substantial improvement in yield and quality in China over the past 30 years. With the selective pressure against fatty acid composition and oil content, high erucic acid-and low oil-content cultivars have been replaced by low erucic acid-and high oil-content cultivars. The high erucic acid cultivar Zhongyou 821 and its descendent, low erucic acid cultivar Zhongshuang 9, are representatives of two generations of the most outstanding Chinese rapeseed cultivars (B. napus) developed the past 2 decades. This paper compares the transcriptional profiles of Zhongshuang 9 and Zhongyou 821 for 32 genes that are principally involved in lipid biosynthesis during seed development in order to elucidate how the transcriptional profiles of these genes responded to quality improvement over the past 20 years.

Five previously reported Brassica napus endogenous reference genes, including acetyl-CoA carboxylase gene (BnACCg8), phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEP), oleoyl hydrolase gene (FatA), high-mobility-group protein I/Y gene (HMG-I/Y) and cruciferin A gene (CruA), were analyzed for their PCR specificity between B. napus and other species and the quantification stability among different B. napus cultivars. PCR and sequencing results indicated that none of these systems was species-specific as required by the genetically modified organism labeling policy. When these genes were employed in real-time PCR, BnACCg8 and HMG-I/Y systems showed relatively greater heterogeneity among 10 different cultivars. The sequencing results showed that the single nucleotide polymorphism in the primer binding sites was the potential source of the instability in the HMG-I/Y system. The bias of BnACCg8 was thought to be associated with the inconsistent copy number of this gene.