A toolkit for plant lipid engineering: Surveying the efficacies of lipogenic factors for accumulating specialty lipids

Abstract

Plants produce energy-dense lipids from carbohydrates using energy acquired via photosynthesis, making plant oils an economically and sustainably attractive feedstock for conversion to biofuels and value-added bioproducts. A growing number of strategies have been developed and optimized in model plants, oilseed crops and high-biomass crops to enhance the accumulation of storage lipids (mostly triacylglycerols, TAGs) for bioenergy applications and to produce specialty lipids with increased uses and value for chemical feedstock and nutritional applications. Most successful metabolic engineering strategies involve heterologous expression of lipogenic factors that outperform those from other sources or exhibit specialized functionality. In this review, we summarize recent progress in engineering the accumulation of triacylglycerols containing - specialized fatty acids in various plant species and tissues. We also provide an inventory of specific lipogenic factors (including accession numbers) derived from a wide variety of organisms, along with their reported efficacy in supporting the accumulation of desired lipids. A review of previously obtained results serves as a foundation to guide future efforts to optimize combinations of factors to achieve further enhancements to the production and accumulation of desired lipids in a variety of plant tissues and species.

Integration of Plant and Microbial Oil Processing at Oilcane Biorefineries for More Sustainable Biofuel Production

“…13 Higher biomass yields and lipid contents may be achieved if alternative regulatory elements are implemented to fine-tune the spatial and temporal expression of lipogenic genes. 56 Research in the development of oil-accumulating feedstocks may direct efforts towards regulating lipogenic gene expression to sustain both high biomass yield and oil contents. In addition to oilcane, researchers are currently developing new lines of oil-accumulating sweet-sorghum 57 (up to 3 dw % oil in stems) which have not exhibited growth penalties (field trials still on-going) and oilaccumulating energycane (up to 1.5 dw % TAG in leaves) [58][59][60] which natively have greater biomass yield than sugarcane.…”

Integration of Plant and Microbial Oil Processing at Oilcane Biorefineries for More Sustainable Biofuel Production

“…License: CC BY 4.0 tune the spatial and temporal expression of lipogenic genes. 49 Research in the development of oil-accumulating feedstocks may direct efforts towards regulating lipogenic gene expression to sustain both high biomass yield and oil contents. In addition to oilcane, researchers are currently developing new lines of oil-accumulating sweet-sorghum 50 (up to 3 dw % oil in stems) which have not exhibited growth penalties (field trials still on-going) and oil-accumulating energycane (up to 1.5 dw % TAG in leaves) [51][52][53] which natively have greater biomass yield than sugarcane.…”

Designer oleosins boost oil accumulation in plant biomass

“…Significant increases in TAG accumulation in vegetative tissues and seeds have been achieved through the engineered co‐production of plant seed proteins that enhance flux toward TAGs via a concept known as ‘push–pull–protect’ (Vanhercke et al ., 2019; Cai et al ., 2022; Sagun et al ., 2023). The concept refers to increased de novo fatty acid biosynthesis in the plastid (‘push’), enhanced TAG assembly in the endoplasmic reticulum (‘pull’), and decreased TAG turnover by downregulating catabolic enzymes (‘protect’).…”