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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #134344
Title: ALTERING FATTY ACID CONTENT OF CORN BY USING GENES FROM TRIPSACUM

Author
item Duvick, Susan
item Pollak, Linda
item WHITE, P - ISU

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/1/2002
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Corn oil from Corn Belt lines has a very narrow range for fatty acid composition. Historically, this narrow range resulted from using genetically uniform material to create the modern Corn Belt hybrids. Introducing new genes from a novel source into the Corn Belt genome improves the genetic diversity and allows germplasm and value-added trait enhancement through traditional plant breeding practices. A population of corn introgressed with genes from Tripsacum dactyloides, a wild relative of corn, was screened for unique value-added traits. The introgressed lines with useful oil quality traits were crossed to Corn Belt inbreds in an attempt to alter the fatty acid composition of the Corn Belt material. Recovered parental introgressed corn lines with desirable fatty acid profiles were reciprocally crossed to Corn Belt inbreds. These breeding crosses were self pollinated and backcrossed for several generations to create new inbreds with enhanced oil quality. The fatty acids targeted for improvement were oleic acid and total saturated fatty acids (palmitic and stearic acids). The breeding program successfully resulted in altering the oleic acid composition from 23.5% (normal content) to 70.1% and the total saturated fatty acid composition from 13.1% (normal content) to 6.5% (low) and 23.0% (high).