Scientists Develop ‘Biofortified’ Canola Seed for Production of Oil with Heart-Healthy Fats

Fish oil is rich in omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, the wonder-nutrients that have long been associated with improved cardiovascular health. While that’s great news for pescatarians, what do you do if you’re a vegetarian or vegan? Or if you just don’t like fish?

Researchers at Dow AgroSciences may have a solution by improving canola seeds, which are used to make canola oil – one of the most healthy and widely consumed plant products – so that it produces fatty acids commonly found in fish.

 

These fishy fatty acids, DHA and EPA, have been shown many times to be associated with heart health, including in a recent comprehensive study in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine of over 45,000 people. The study showed that several omega 3 fatty acids, including DHA and EPA, led to a lower risk of fatal coronary heart disease.

 

Why canola?
Canola is a good crop for producing these two fish-famous fatty acids. It already is a well-established, multibillion dollar crop, mostly grown for its oil-containing seeds. Also, it makes a ‘healthy’ oil. Even as is, canola oil has enough unsaturated fats that it’s allowed to sport the following qualified health claim from the FDA:

 

‘Limited and not conclusive scientific evidence suggests that eating about 1 ½ tablespoons (19 grams) of canola oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease due to the unsaturated fat content in canola oil.’

 

However, canola oil is lacking in omega 3 fatty acids, especially when compared to flaxseed, which has very high levels of the essential omega-3 fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).

 

This new approach seems to solve that deficiency. The authors claim that just 1 tablespoon of the new canola oil processed from field-grown plants has more than the daily recommended amount of omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids per serving.

 

A healthy serving of (micro)algae
Surprisingly, while we get most of our dietary omega 3s by eating fish, fish don’t actually produce the omega 3 fatty acids themselves.  Microscopic microalgae, including phytoplankton, are the primary producers of DHA and EPA. The tiny unicellular organisms are consumed up the food chain, with their nutrients eventually accumulating in the fatty tissues of the fish.

 

The Dow scientists took the genetic assembly line for omega 3 fatty acids from microalgae and put it into canola. They designed the system to turn on only in the canola seeds, where the oil is produced and stored, by using seed-specific promoters to activate the genes. This certainly isn’t the first time plants have been used to produce omega 3s, but there is a unique aspect to this approach.

 

This work represents the first time that such a ‘megasynthase,’ the complex set of proteins for, in this case, fatty acid production has been successfully expressed in a crop plant. “The ability to express these large complex genes in plants and have them function to produce omega 3 fatty acids is truly a remarkable technical accomplishment,” said Dan Kittle, Vice President of Research and Development at Dow AgroSciences.

 

Manufacturing plants
While these new canola plants may or may not end up being vegetarians’ go-to source of omega 3 fatty acids—regulatory and political hurdles aside—they do represent an example of plants as a vehicle for manufacturing nutrients or goods with tangible benefits.

 

Not only could they have potential health benefits for humans, but producing omega 3 enriched plant-based oils could also ease the burden on fish farming and the demand for fish oil for the fish farms. In a bit of a wasteful feedback loop, farmed fish have to be fed fish oil in order to accumulate the fatty acids that they would otherwise obtain from microalgae.

 

Plant-based vaccines can provide a more affordable and more immediate model to develop and deliver antibody treatments.

 

These solutions show some of the improvements that scientists have made in taking advantage of plants as photosynthetic production lines. For plant-based fish oils, it remains to be seen whether they will provide similar nutritional benefits as consuming fish, but for many they may offer hope of a healthy, fish-free alternative.