Iowa State University botanist Eve Wurtele, biochemist Basil Nikolau, and botany graduate student Jingdong Sun are members of a five-person research team studying how the oil content of soybeans can be changed by manipulating a single enzyme.
Soybean oil is one of the world's most significant sources of edible and industrial fats and oils.
Soybean seeds manufacture the oil from sugar that is transported into the developing seed. How much of this sugar becomes oil and how much is turned into protein is genetically regulated. We think that by genetically engineering soybeans to produce more of the enzyme, we will increase oil yields. But we don't know what effect altering the enzyme will have on protein content. Traditional plant breeding results suggest that the higher the oil content of soybeans, the lower the protein and vice versa.