Analysis of Arabidopsis mutants that have a defect of oil body formation

Abstract

Oil seeds store a large amount of lipid, which is used during seed germination and seedling growth. Oil body, which accumulates mainly triacylglycerol, is an organelle that is surrounded by a half membrane structure. It has been shown that oil bodies are formed from endoplasmic reticulum during seed maturation and the content lipids are degraded by glyoxysomes after seed germination. To investigate biogenensis of oil body in maturing seeds, we isolated Arabidopsis mutants that had different densities of the seeds from wild-type seeds. Electron micrographic analysis revealed that oil bodies in the mutant seeds exhibited abnormal size and shape. Detailed analysis with the mutant seeds will provide valuable information of the molecular mechanism for biogenensis of oil bodies in maturing seeds.