[Metabolic engineering of edible plant oils]

Plant seed oil is the major source of many fatty acids for human nutrition, and also one of industrial feedstocks. Recent advances in understanding of the basic biochemistry of seed oil biosynthesis, coupled with cloning of the genes encoding the enzymes involved in fatty acid modification and oil accumulation, have set the stage for the metabolic engineering of oilseed crops that produce "designer" plant seed oils with the improved nutritional values for human being. In this review we provide an overview of seed oil biosynthesis/regulation and highlight the key enzymatic steps that are targets for gene manipulation. The strategies of metabolic engineering of fatty acids in oilseeds, including overexpression or suppression of genes encoding single or multi-step biosynthetic pathways and assembling the complete pathway for the synthesis of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (e.g. arachidonic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid) are described in detail. The current "bottlenecks" in using common oilseeds as "bioreactors" for commercial production of high-value fatty acids are analyzed. It is also discussed that the future research focuses of oilseed metabolic engineering and the prospects in creating renewable sources and promoting the sustainable development of human society and economy.