Production of industrial m aterials in transgenic plants

Abstract

Millions of tonnes of organic chemicals, or polymeric derivatives, are produced annually from agricultural plants. Genetic engineering methods can be used to modify the chemical composition of the storage compounds in many plant species. This will create opportunities to expand the uses of biomaterials as renewable and environmentally more benign alternatives to some uses of petrochemicals. Many of the most promising opportunities, in this respect, involve relatively minor modifications of the chemical composition of plant oils. The introduction of a single functional group into a fatty acid may create new industrial uses for the fatty acid and, therefore, significantly increase the value of the oil. Because different species of higher plants accumulate at least 210 different kinds of fatty acids, the genetic resources are available to support the production of a wide variety of modifications of agricultural oilseed species by genetic engineering. In addition, a large number of useful modifications may be produced by introducing genes for fatty-acid modifying enzymes, or related aspects of metabolism, from microorganisms.