The plant lipid metabolic network for assembly of diverse triacylglycerol molecular species

Plant oils are a renewable natural resource providing food, feed, bio-fuels, and chemicals. The various applications of plant oils stem the highly diverse fatty acid compositions produced by plants. However, most crop plants have a very limited fatty acid composition, and with few acceptations there has been inadequate success in controlling plant oil fatty acid composition through bioengineering. Some of the bioengineering difficulties derive from an incomplete understanding of how plants control the flux of fatty acids through the glycolipid metabolic network for fatty acid modification and accumulation of diverse triacylglycerol molecular species. This chapter summarizes current knowledge and uncertainties for the metabolic pathways that compose the glycerolipid metabolic network and the gene products involved. Current hypotheses for the cellular organization of lipid metabolism into distinct metabolons that may contribute to the differential flux through the glycerolipid biosynthetic network by different plants are also discussed.