The complex consequences of engineering oil leaf production in plants

Plant-derived oleochemicals are a promising sustainable subs tute for fossil fuel-based feedstocks for lubricants and polymers or as biofuels and food addi ves (Hill, 2007).However, compared to cellulose the plant oil content is very low and significant increases in plant oil produc on are needed to meet the growing global demands.Most plants accumulate rela vely high amounts of oil in seeds and fruits.However, this oil accumula on occurs only during the last third of the plant lifecycle.Thus, it has been proposed to engineer the leaves of plants to constantly produce plant oils, which could considerably increase produc on.Previously, transgenic tobacco plants with elevated oil content in leaves were generated using a "Push-Pull-Protect" strategy.A push was generated by upregula ng fa y acid biosynthesis using a transgenic transcrip on factor (Vanhercke et al., 2014).The pull was generated by conversion of the fa y acids into triacylglycerol (TAG), which were protected from degrada on by packaging into lipid droplets (Vanhercke et al., 2014).