ABSTRACT
The major fatty acids from the world oil supply are palmitic, linoleic and oleic acids. Many unusual fatty acids can accumulate in seed oils as their major components, or in substantial amounts sometimes comprising more than 90% of the seed oil. Higher plants possess a number of different unsaturated fatty acids, of which the principal ones have double bonds at the 9, 12 and 15 positions of 18-carbon acyl chains. The channel imposes a bent conformation on the fatty acid chain between carbon atoms 9 and 10, the site of desaturation. In most cases, the production level of unusual fatty acid structures in transgenic plants has been substantially below the level found in the species from which genes for its biosynthesis were derived. Fatty acid desaturases in plants introduce c/s-double bonds into acyl chains with regio-specificity and adjacent double bonds are normally methylene-interrupted.
