Dr James Petrie ‘Modifying oil-seed crops to produce fish oils’

Dr James Petrie is a Research Scientist at CSIRO in the Plant Oil Engineering group. He is best known for his role in engineering canola seed to accumulate the long-chain omega-3 oils commonly found in fish oil. James also leads a project which aims for step-change productivity increase in plant oil yield by producing triacylglycerol in plant leaves and stems rather than seed alone.

Omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids like EPA and DHA have critical roles in human health and development with studies indicating that deficiencies in these fatty acids can increase the risk or severity of cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases in particular. These fatty acids are predominantly sourced from fish and algal oils. In order to meet the increasing demand for these oils there is an urgent need for an alternative and sustainable source of EPA and DHA. We have focused on maximizing the production of DHA in seed. This talk will describe the transition of DHA production in seed of our model species Arabidopsis through to Camelina, Brassica juncea and ourt arget crop, Brassica napus. DHA levels that exceed the amount typically found in bulk fish oil have now been achieved in all four species. This talk will describe gene characterization, construct designs, transgenic plants and seed oil fatty acid profiles. We will also describe the progress of the ongoing GM canola field trials and the consequence this crop will have for securing long-chain omega-3 supplies on the context of increasing demand.