Meta-analysis unravels common responses of seed oil fatty acids to temperature for a wide set of genotypes of different plant species

Abstract

Temperature is the main environmental determinant of seed oil fatty acid Q9composition. There are no models describing common responses of mainseed oil fatty acids to temperature in plants. Metaphenomics tools wereapplied to a database consisted of 164 genotypes of 9 species, sunflower,rapeseed, soybean, maize, flax, chia, safflower, olive and camelia, grown undera wide range of environmental conditions. A General Model was established withdata from four widely sown species. The minimum temperature during grainfilling responses of fatty acids in the General Model were close to responsesfound in genotypes of five independent species used to validate the model.Dissections of the general model by selecting the appropriate data allowedunraveling previously unknown features of the response of fatty acid to theminimum temperature during grain filling. The response of fatty acids totemperature for any species was unaffected by experimental conditions (fieldor controlled conditions) during the oil synthesis stage. The oleic acid trait did notaffect the response to temperature of fatty acids synthesized downstream andupstream of it. Traits such as high stearic or high linoleic did not affect theresponse of fatty acids synthesized upstream or downstream of the trait. Theestablished models and new knowledge could be applied to design costeffectiveand timely experiments to assess the potential responses of seed oilfatty acids to temperature of previously untested genotypes.