Globally, vegetable oils are harvested from a handful of oil crops at an annual rate exceeding 100 million tons (1). Most oils are used for human or animal consumption, although a minor fraction is derivatized to oleochemicals. More recently, an increasing amount of vegetable oil is being diverted to the production of biodiesel [i.e., fatty acid (FA) methyl-esters], and is an attractive feedstock for the so-called "drop-in" biofu'els of the future, further increasing the demand on this commodity (2). Because of the commercial importance of vegetable oils, during the past 30 y, the biosynthesis of FAs and their derived acyl lipids, especially plant triacylglycerols (TAGs), has attracted a tremendous amount of scientific interest, resulting in the identification and characterization of the functions of most of the enzymes involved in their production and sequestration (3). In addition, researchers have attempted to understand the quantitative regulation of biosynthesis with the ultimate goal of increasing oil production in crops.
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