Michigan State University

Sanjaya

Christoph Benning

Rachel Miller

Changcheng Xu

As described herein, plants expressing algal Diacylglycerol Acyltransferase Type Two (DGTT) from heterologous nucleic acids can alter acyl carbon partitioning in plant vegetative tissues and increase acyl-CoA-dependent triacylglycerol synthesis, thereby increasing the lipid content of the plants' tissues.

Increased caloric and nutritional content of plant biomass

The invention relates to genetically modified agricultural plants with increased oil content in vegetative tissues, as well as to expression systems, plant cells, seeds and vegetative tissues related thereto.

Genetically engineered plants with increased vegetative oil content

The present invention relates to compositions and methods for providing RNA interference (RNAi) vectors comprising trigalactosyldiacylglycerol (tgd) biosynthesis enzyme constructs for increasing oil content of plants. Further, the use of tgd RNAi silencing vectors in combination with co-expression of heterologous oil regulating transcription factors, such as WRINKLED1, are contemplated to overcome the reduced growth and variable levels of embryonic lethality in plants with reduced TGD protein. Additionally, plants having reduced APS1, a gene encoding a major catalytic isoform of the small subunit of AGPase (AGP(&#x2212;) plants), co-expressing a heterologous oil modulating transcription factor are contemplated for use in combination with plants having reduced TGD. Oil harvested from vegetative tissues of plants comprising vectors and genes of the present invention is contemplated for use in biofuel and biodiesel products.

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East Lansing, MI, United States of America

Sanjaya