Biodiesel is considered a promising replacement to petroleum-derived diesel. Using oils extracted from agricultural crops competes with their use as food and cannot realistically satisfy the global demand of diesel-fuel requirements. On the other hand, microalgae, which have a much higher oil yield per hectare, compared to oil crops, appear to be a source that has the potential to completely re...

High biomass crops have recently attracted significant attention as an alternative platform for the renewable production of high energy storage lipids such as triacylglycerol (TAG). While TAG typically accumulates in seeds as storage compounds fuelling subsequent germination, levels in vegetative tissues are generally low. Here, we report the accumulation of more than 15% TAG (17.7% total lipid...

Samples of food crops (peanut, peeled pistachio, unpeeled pistachio, rice, and corn) and feed (barley, bran, corn) were autoclave-sterilized, and inoculated with 10(6) of spore suspension of an isolate of Aspergillus flavus fungus known to produce aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) . Following a 10-day period of incubation at 27 C to allow for fungal growth, food and feed samples were irradiated with gamma ra...

Shenbaga Devi, A., P. Santhanam, V. Rekha, S. Ananth, B. Balaji Prasath, R. Nandakumar, S. Jeyanthi and S. Dinesh Kumar Culture and biofuel producing efficacy of marine microalgae Dunaliella salina and Nannochloropsis sp. J. Algal Biomass Utln. 2012, 3 (4): 38–4 Abstract Biodiesel from oil crops, waste cooking oil and animal fat cannot realistically satisfy even a small fraction of the existing...

Tuber and root crops virtually exclusively accumulate storage products in the form of carbohydrates. An exception is yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) in which tubers have the capacity to store starch and triacylglycerols (TAG) in roughly equal amounts. This suggests that a tuber crop can efficiently handle accumulation of energy dense oil. From a nutritional as well as economic aspect, it w...

The importance of an alternative and sustainable supply of omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC omega-3) has long been established. As these biologically active fatty acids have an established role in nutrition and health, there is an ever increasing demand for oils containing LC omega-3 e.g. eicosapentaenoic (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). These fatty acids are produced by ...

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has increased from 280 ppm (parts per million, mole fraction basis) in preindustrial times to 370 ppm today. As concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases rise, global temperature is anticipated to increase. Elevated CO2 will improve crop yields due to increased photosynthesis. However, at above-optimum temperatures for reproductive growth pr...

Oil palm is one of the most important oil bearing crops, being by far the highest oil yielder per unit land area in the world. In order to facilitate oil palm genome analysis leading to physical mapping, identification of molecular markers associated with quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and map-based cloning, we attempted to develop the tools and techniques needed to construct a bacterial artifi...

Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the most important food crops throughout the world, and provides oil and proteins to humans and livestock. Kernel oil and protein content in maize are two complex quantitative traits. In order to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling oil and protein concentration in maize kernels, and to evaluate their genetic effects, QTL analysis was conducted on an ...