Molecular and biochemical analysis of the castor caruncle reveals a set of unique genes involved in oil accumulation in non-seed tissues

BACKGROUND: With the increasing demand for vegetative oil and the approach of peak seed oil production, it is important to develop new oil production platforms from non-seed tissues. Castor bean (Ricinus communis) is one of the crops for vegetable oil for industrial applications with yield around 1.4 ton oil per hectare produced in seed. The castor caruncle is a non-seed tissue attached to seed. RESULTS: Caruncle accumulates up to 40% oil by weight in the form of triacylglycerol (TAG), with a highly contrasting fatty acid composition when compared to the seed oil. Biochemical analysis indicated that the caruncle synthesizes TAGs independent of the seed. Such non-seed tissue has provided an excellent resource for understanding the mechanism of oil accumulation in tissues other than seeds. Transcriptome analysis revealed the key members of gene families involved in fatty acid synthesis and TAG assembly in the caruncle. A transient expression assay of these selected genes resulted in a 20-fold increased TAG accumulation in leaves. CONCLUSIONS: Castor caruncle utilizes an independent system to synthesize TAGs. Results provide the possibility of exploiting caruncle gene set to engineer oil production in non-seed tissues or microbes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-019-1496-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.