TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of vegetative oil sorghum
T2 - From lab-to-field
AU - Park, Kiyoul
AU - Quach, Truyen
AU - Clark, Teresa J.
AU - Kim, Hyojin
AU - Zhang, Tieling
AU - Wang, Mengyuan
AU - Guo, Ming
AU - Sato, Shirley
AU - Nazarenus, Tara J.
AU - Blume, Rostislav
AU - Blume, Yaroslav
AU - Zhang, Chi
AU - Moose, Stephen P.
AU - Swaminathan, Kankshita
AU - Schwender, Jörg
AU - Clemente, Thomas Elmo
AU - Cahoon, Edgar B.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Plant Biotechnology Journal published by Society for Experimental Biology and The Association of Applied Biologists and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2025/2
Y1 - 2025/2
N2 - Biomass crops engineered to accumulate energy-dense triacylglycerols (TAG or ‘vegetable oils’) in their vegetative tissues have emerged as potential feedstocks to meet the growing demand for renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Unlike oil palm and oilseed crops, the current commercial sources of TAG, vegetative tissues, such as leaves and stems, only transiently accumulate TAG. In this report, we used grain (Texas430 or TX430) and sugar-accumulating ‘sweet’ (Ramada) genotypes of sorghum, a high-yielding, environmentally resilient biomass crop, to accumulate TAG in leaves and stems. We initially tested several gene combinations for a ‘push-pull-protect’ strategy. The top TAG-yielding constructs contained five oil transgenes for a sorghum WRINKLED1 transcription factor (‘push’), a Cuphea viscosissima diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT; ‘pull’), a modified sesame oleosin (‘protect’) and two combinations of specialized Cuphea lysophosphatidic acid acyltransferases and medium-chain acyl-acyl carrier protein thioesterases. Though intended to generate oils with medium-chain fatty acids, engineered lines accumulated oleic acid-rich oil to amounts of up to 2.5% DW in leaves and 2.0% DW in stems in the greenhouse, 36-fold and 49-fold increases relative to wild-type (WT) plants, respectively. Under field conditions, the top-performing event accumulated TAG to amount to 5.5% DW in leaves and 3.5% DW in stems, 78-fold and 58-fold increases, respectively, relative to WT TX430. Transcriptomic and fluxomic analyses revealed potential bottlenecks for increased TAG accumulation. Overall, our studies highlight the utility of a lab-to-field pipeline coupled with systems biology studies to deliver high vegetative oil sorghum for SAF and renewable diesel production.
AB - Biomass crops engineered to accumulate energy-dense triacylglycerols (TAG or ‘vegetable oils’) in their vegetative tissues have emerged as potential feedstocks to meet the growing demand for renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Unlike oil palm and oilseed crops, the current commercial sources of TAG, vegetative tissues, such as leaves and stems, only transiently accumulate TAG. In this report, we used grain (Texas430 or TX430) and sugar-accumulating ‘sweet’ (Ramada) genotypes of sorghum, a high-yielding, environmentally resilient biomass crop, to accumulate TAG in leaves and stems. We initially tested several gene combinations for a ‘push-pull-protect’ strategy. The top TAG-yielding constructs contained five oil transgenes for a sorghum WRINKLED1 transcription factor (‘push’), a Cuphea viscosissima diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT; ‘pull’), a modified sesame oleosin (‘protect’) and two combinations of specialized Cuphea lysophosphatidic acid acyltransferases and medium-chain acyl-acyl carrier protein thioesterases. Though intended to generate oils with medium-chain fatty acids, engineered lines accumulated oleic acid-rich oil to amounts of up to 2.5% DW in leaves and 2.0% DW in stems in the greenhouse, 36-fold and 49-fold increases relative to wild-type (WT) plants, respectively. Under field conditions, the top-performing event accumulated TAG to amount to 5.5% DW in leaves and 3.5% DW in stems, 78-fold and 58-fold increases, respectively, relative to WT TX430. Transcriptomic and fluxomic analyses revealed potential bottlenecks for increased TAG accumulation. Overall, our studies highlight the utility of a lab-to-field pipeline coupled with systems biology studies to deliver high vegetative oil sorghum for SAF and renewable diesel production.
KW - biomass feedstocks
KW - fatty acids
KW - renewable fuels
KW - triacylglycerol
KW - vegetative oils
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U2 - 10.1111/pbi.14527
DO - 10.1111/pbi.14527
M3 - Article
C2 - 39615039
AN - SCOPUS:85210770822
SN - 1467-7644
VL - 23
SP - 660
EP - 673
JO - Plant Biotechnology Journal
JF - Plant Biotechnology Journal
IS - 2
ER -