Advances in the genetic modification of oil palm

Denis J. Murphy

• Publisher: Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838794675
• Subtopic: Agriculture
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Transgenic crop modification uses recombinant DNA methods to alter gene expression in order to create new varieties for breeders that may be either difficult or impossible to produce using conventional approaches. Over the past few decades, transgenic methods have been successfully applied to develop genetically modified (GM) varieties of the major oilseed crops. In this chapter, the research efforts for production of GM oil palm plants over the past 20 years will be reviewed. Although these efforts have yet to result in stable lines of commercially useful GM varieties of oil palm, there are good prospects that the greatly improved knowledge of genomics coupled with advanced technologies such as genome editing will be successful in the future.

Table of contents

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Early and current genetically modified (GM) crop varieties
• 3 GM oil palm in Malaysia
• 4 Improving the fatty acid composition of palm oil
• 5 Progress to date in oil palm transformation
• 6 New technologies for genome editing – an alternative to ‘classical GM’
• 7 Conclusions and future prospects
• 8 Where to look for further information
• 9 References