Amrita University
Amritapuri, Vallikavu, Kerala 690525
India
Muthulakshmi Chellamuthu, Pratik Pusadkar, Kokiladevi Eswaran and Selvi Subramanian.
“Transgenic Sesamum indicum plants for alpha linolenic acid production”
Sesame, Sesamum indicum L. is an important oilseed crop widely cultivated in India. It yields high quality premium oil and stable against prolonged storage and heating. In cultivated sesame, seed oil content ranged from 40.4% to 59.8% (Hiremath et al. 2007). Fatty acids of sesame oil are mainly oleic (32.7–53.9%), linoleic (39.3–59%) palmitic (8.3–10.9%) and stearic (3.4–6.0%) acids. Alpha linolenic acid (ALA) is an essential fatty acid; dietary consumption of ALA is associated with the primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease (Covington 2004). Sesame oil is preferred for its flavor, taste and medicinal properties but it lacks the essential ALA. This study attempts to alter the desaturation pattern of sesame oil to produce ALA using transgenic approaches. A bifunctional Δ12/ω3 fatty acid desaturase gene was isolated from Fusarium moniliforme. Sesamum seed specific promoter was isolated from the oleic acid desaturase gene SeFAD2. Two gene constructs, one with just the active promoter region and another up to −660 region along with the one large intron within the 5\’-untranslated region were developed. A high yielding (880 kg/ha) and high oil content (54%) sesame variety SVPR1 was used in transformation. Agrobacterium mediated transformation method were used. Plant regeneration was successful in direct organogenesis methods but we are standardizing indirect organogenesis method also. Some regenerated transformed tissues were tested for GUS assay and PCR.