production of wax esters in crambe

time increasing the volume of production, these types of wax esters could
immediately be considered for much larger marketing applications such as
automotive, transmission and hydraulic fluids.
Addition of jojoba oil (15-20%) to soybean oil has shown to effectively improve
oxidation stability of the plant oil (Torres et al., 2006). However, due to a high price
on wax esters from jojoba the final price on the improved soy oil will not compete
with petroleum-based oils and would have difficulty to compete with synthetic oils as
well.
Hence, an alternative production of wax esters in a high-yielding oil crop constitutes
an attractive approach to provide the market with outstanding lubrication oil at an
affordable price level.
Target genes to modify and redirect the flow of carbon chain in the genetically
modified Crambe to produce novel wax esters include:
For a jojoba type of wax ester
• Fatty acid reductase (FAR) with specificity towards C22:1. Crambe already
has high levels of up to 60% of the long chain erucic fatty acid (22:1).
Consequently this fatty acid is a good substrate for the alcohol-producing
FAR enzyme.
• Acyl-CoA:fatty alcohol acyltransferase (WS) with specificity towards 22:1
alcohol and C18 or C20 fatty acyl-CoA substrates. The 22:1 alcohol is used
by WS for production of wax esters with a C18 or a C20 fatty acid. The
desired wax product would have a structure of C 40-44 consisting of a long
chain fatty alcohol C 20-22 esterified to a long chain fatty acid C 18-22 and contain
not more than 1 double bond per carbon chain.
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