Fatty Acid Composition in Developing High Saturated Sunflower (Helianthus annuus) Seeds:  Maturation Changes and Temperature Effect

Abstract

Developing seeds from sunflower high palmitic acid mutants showed high levels of palmitic acid at early stages. The stearic acid content of high stearic mutants (CAS-3, CAS-4, and CAS-8) increased from low or medium initial values until it reached the maximum level at 16 days after flowering. All mutant lines increased palmitic acid content at high growth temperature with CAS-5 having the maximum increase (5.7%). At the same time, all but CAS-3 increased stearic acid content at low temperature with CAS-8 showing the maximum increase (9.6%). The unsaturation level in the mutants had a different linoleic/oleic ratio than the control line, but always with a ratio higher than 1 at low temperature. Only mutant CAS-5 maintained a similar desaturation level at any temperature, being 3.5-11 times higher than that of the other lines. The temperature affects the polar lipids in a similar way.

Stearic sunflower oil as a sustainable and healthy alternative to palm oil. A review

“…Also, in the medium stearic acid mutants CAS-4 and CAS-8, an inverse relationship between growth temperature and stearic acid proportions was reported. At 30/20°C day/night temperature, these mutants had 11-12% stearic acid, whereas at 20/10°C, they contained 18-20% stearic acid (Martínez-Force et al 1998). In another study by Izquierdo et al (2013) with the CAS-3 mutant, the stearic acid content at 16/16°C was higher than at 26/26°C (26.2 vs. 18.4%) during the grain filling period.…”

Changes in Seed Quality during Maturation of Sunflower under High or Changeable Water Table Conditions

“…Robertson et al (1978) found during seed development, that for each 1ºC decrease in temperature, oleic acid decreased by 0.87% and linoleic acid increased by 0.32%. Martínez-Force et al (1998) investigated the changes in fatty acid composition during maturation and the effects of temperature on normal fatty acid content in developing sunflower seeds. At 35 DAF, the linoleic/oleic acid ratio was lower in the seeds under the high-temperature condition (30/20ºC day/night) than that under the lowtemperature condition (20/10ºC day/night).…”

“…The changes of seed oil percentage, fatty acid compositions and dry weight with seed maturation (Robertson et al, 1978) and the changes in fatty acid compositions and the effects of temperature condition (Martínez-Force et al, 1998) have been analyzed. Baydar and Erbaş (2005) tracked changes in the quality of linoleic hybrid seeds and found that the oil content increased, oleic acid content decreased, and linoleic acid content increased during the seed maturation process.…”

“…Although studies on the changes in the components of sunflower seeds during maturation have been reported, the plants were grown in upland fields or controlled growth chambers (Martínez-Force et al, 1998;Baydar and Erbaş, 2005); and, the changes of quality in maturing period under conditions of high or changeable soil moisture content, such as that in rotational paddy fields or fields with poor drainage have not been reported. In the present study, we analyzed the changes in seed quality of mid-oleic and linoleic acid sunflower hybrids grown in rotational paddy fields.…”

Biochemistry of high stearic sunflower, a new source of saturated fats

“…However, more recent programs of sunflower improvement have produced a second generation of modified sunflower oils in which their fatty acid composition differed much more from that in regular sunflower (Table 1). These mutants display high levels of saturated fatty acids, displaying very different physical properties and having a high potential for industrial applications [17,18]. The compositions of some of them are depicted in Table 1, where typical compositions of high stearic and high palmitic sunflower mutants are shown.…”