Chen Xiaofeng ^1,2 , Peng Mu ^1,3* , Huang Fenglan ^1,2 , Luo Rui ⁴ , Zhao Yong ¹ , Bao Chunguang ⁴ , Lei Xue ¹ , Li Yue ¹

1 College of Life Science, Inner Mongolia University for the Nationalities, Tongliao 028043, China
2 Inner Mongolia Industrial Engineering Research Center of Universities for Castor, Tongliao 028043, China
3 College of Life Science, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China
4 Tongliao Academy of Agricultural Science, Tongliao 028043, China
Author    Correspondence author
Molecular Plant Breeding, 2016, Vol. 7, No. 24   doi: 10.5376/mpb.2016.07.0024
Received: 01 Feb., 2016    Accepted: 15 Mar., 2016    Published: 07 Apr., 2016

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Chen X.F., Peng M., Huang F.L., Luo R., Zhao Y., Bao C.G, Lei X., and Li Y., 2016, A Quantitative Assay for Fatty Acid Composition of Castor Seed in Different Developmental Stages, Molecular Plant Breeding, 7(24): 1-8 (doi: 10.5376/mpb.2016.07.0024)

The aim of this study was to detect and investigate the fatty acid composition of castor seed under different development stage using soxhlet extraction and capillary gas chromatography methods to find the dynamic change of fatty acid composition and their relationships. The results showed that oil content and twelve fatty acid compositions were identified in the seed development, while the content of oil and compositions were significantly different and monitored during seed development. Oil content displayed a linear increase from the beginning of seed formation to maturation. Several compositions, mytistic acid, behenic acid and lignoceric acid, were just found at initial seed filling phase and significantly declined with seed maturity, suggesting that fatty acid composition of castor seed in the initial phases of seed formation differed substantially form that of the mature seeds. The correlation analysis results revealed significant positive correlations of seed development time with mostly fatty acids, further demonstrating that the fatty acids were closely correlated with seed development. These obtained results will benefit for breeding research in high oil content of castor.

Ricinus communis L.; fatty acids; oil content;seed development; correlation coefficient