Gene editing used to produce soybean oil with less trans fats

Due to high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids, soybean oil has poor oxidative and frying stability, which limits its use in food products and industrial applications. In an effort to lower the levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids, soybean oil is partially hydrogenated; however, partial hydrogenation significantly increases trans-fatty acids, which have been linked with coronary heart disease and buildup of plaque in arteries. … Altering the composition of soybean oil by decreasing the levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids may help reduce the need for hydrogenation.

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An advantage of engineering crops with sequence-specific nucleases is that the resulting product is not required to harbor transgenic DNA. … Due to the lengthy and costly deregulation process, the technology and methods presented within this study provide a clear advantage over conventional transgenesis, thereby enabling more groups to contribute to crop improvement and food security.

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Here we describe methods to efficiently stack quality traits within plants using sequence-specific nucleases. TALENs [was used]… to produce triple knockout fad2-1a fad2-1b fad3 plants. Seed oil from the triple knockout lines had significantly altered fatty acid levels…. The polyunsaturated fatty acids, linoleic and linolenic acid, decreased to levels below 3 %, and the monounsaturated fatty acid oleic acid increased to levels over 80 %.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Direct stacking of sequence-specific nuclease-induced mutations to produce high oleic and low linolenic soybean oil

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