Scientists Identify Mechanism for Regulating Plant Oil Production
(Brookhaven National Laboratory) Findings suggest ways to increase oil production for biofuels and industrial processes
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified key elements in the biochemical mechanism plants use to limit the production of fatty acids. The results suggest ways scientists might target those biochemical pathways to increase the production of plant oils as a renewable resource for biofuels and industrial processes.
“Now that we understand how this system operates—how plants ‘know’ when they’ve made enough oil and how they slow down production—we can look for ways to break the feedback loop so they keep making more oil,” said Brookhaven biochemist John Shanklin, leader of the group publishing the work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of June 4, 2012. READ MORE and MORE (Biofuels Digest) and MORE (Brookhaven) Abstract
