The Role of Plant Gene Transformation in Oilseed Crop Improvement in Agriculture

Introducing and expressing new genes in oilseed plants results in many opportunities which so far, have changed the face of agriculture. Such changes have created an enabling environment for circumventing challenges hindering high agricultural productivity and to fight against the detrimental effects of climate change. This review discusses the benefits of transgenic oilseed crops in the production of high level fatty acids for industrial processing and preparation. Furthermore, the paper provide highlights on the variety of options available in choosing a suitable transformation system and consideration of appropriate recombinant transgenes to ensure expression in targeted host plant tissues. It is not yet possible to fully benefit from all oilseed crops because many of them show recalcitrance to genetic transformation, particularly crops that contain high oil content such asrape seed, canola and soybean. This difficulty points to the greater need of improvement and optimisation in the currently used genetic transformation protocols for routine application in all species used in agriculture.

Keywords: Agro bacterium; gene transformation; oilseed; fatty acids; transgenic; agriculture..