Plant Oil Bodies and Oleosins: Structure, Function and Biotechnological Applications
Anisha David, Sunita Yadav and Satish Chander Bhatla
from: Bionanotechnology: Biological Self-assembly and its Applications (Edited by: Bernd H. A. Rehm). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2013)
Abstract
Although oil bodies are present in a wide variety of tissues in plants, it is their abundance in the oilseed cotyledons that has been most extensively investigated for their biogenesis, structure, physiological roles, isolation and biotechnological applications. The phospholipid monolayer membrane of the oil bodies encasing the triacylglycerol (TAG) matrix not only possesses a set of structural and functional proteins (oleosins, steroleosins and caleosins), they also exhibit quite a few enzymatic and non-enzymatic proteins on their surface (lipoxygenase, protease and phospholipase) whose expression is transient and depends on the stage of oil body mobilization during seed germination. These transiently expressed signalling molecules are under the influence of various environmental and consequent physiological factors for their roles in oil body mobilization during seed germination. Based on these features of oil bodies to attract and bind a variety of biomolecules on their surface, oil body preparations have been put to extensive biotechnological applications, which are also being discussed in this review read more ...
