Engineering oilseeds to synthesise designer wax esters

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Waxes are a type of lipid which have useful properties, specially as lubricants. The modern industrial world is dependent (literally) on the smooth running of millions of machines and processes, all of which require lubricants to reduce friction and wear & tear. Currently, most lubricants are made from crude oil by chemical transformations, a process which consumes this deminishing natural resource both as a feedstock and as a source of energy to drive the reaction. In other words, petrochemically-derived lubricants are unsustainable. Whilst plant seeds produce oils, these are not very effective as lubricants as they are prone to oxidising which makes them sticky. However, one particular plant, jojoba, makes a different class of oil to that found in all other plant seeds. Jojoba seeds accumulate wax esters, rather than triacylglycerols, and waxes have far superior lubricating properties compared with the normal seed oils. Unfortunately, jobaba plants only grow in American deserts, which precludes their use in European agriculture. To circumvent this problem, we propose to transfer the genes for wax biosynthesis from jojoba (and other organisms which make wax esters) to suitable plant species for evaluation and testing. It is proposed to use Arabidopsis as a model system to identify the best combination of genes to make waxes with the most useful properties, and having determined these, introduce them into a dedicated industrial oilseed crop, Brassica carinata (Ethiopian mustard). Importantly, by using a crop species that is not used to produce food, this will ensure that our waxes (to serve as biolubricants) will not enter the human food chain. Overall, this project aims to demonstrate the feasablity of substituting plant-derived wax esters for petrochemically-derived lubricants, providing a new green, sustainable source of these important compounds.