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IMAGE: Biochemist Xiao-Hong Yu s research on specialty fatty acid production in plants got a boost from collaborating with colleagues studying an off-switch that regulates ordinary fatty acid synthesis. view more
Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory
UPTON, NY - Hundreds of naturally occurring specialty fatty acids (building blocks of oils) have potential for use as raw materials for making lubricants, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and more if they could be produced at large scale by crop plants. But attempts to put genes for making these specialty building blocks into crops have had the opposite effect: Seeds from plants with genes added to make specialty fatty acids accumulated dramatically less oil. No one knew why.