The survey of genetic engineering approaches for oil/fatty acid content improvement in oilseed crops

Lipids are important biomolecules; they serve as structural components of partitioning membrane while they are also excellent energy reserves. The storage lipids in oil seeds are an irreplaceable source of nutrition and energy requirement of humans and cattle. During the past decade, an important discovery identified the components and enzyme involved in plant lipid biosynthesis. This understanding helped the scientific community to stand on giant's shoulder and advance into the manipulation of lipid biosynthesis not just to increase the oil content but preferentially improving the fatty acid profile. The targeted exploitation of de novo fatty acid biosynthesis or elongation summarized most of the approaches that have been employed to achieve desirable improvements in oil seed crops. This includes the overexpression of key enzymes from bacterial or plant origin under control of specific promoters. This knowledge translation from understanding the biosynthesis to directional changes in the lipid profile of seed has been partially successful industrially. However, there are still several studies due to publish about improvement in seed oil content and fatty acid profile in crops of economic importance. In this chapter, the authors discuss the most efficient genetic engineering approaches employed to achieve the desirable lipid profile in two major oil seed crops viz. Soybean, and Camelina. These two oil crops are being cultivated globally for feed as well as a biofuel component.