High throughput screening of fatty acid composition

Abstract

A method for the high throughput screening of fatty acid characteristics in seeds is provided. The method comprises feeding seeds individually to a sampling station; removing a sample from the seed in the sampling station; conveying the sample to a compartment in a sample tray; converting extracted oil from the sample in the sample tray to form a mixture of fatty acid methyl esters; and analyzing the mixture of fatty acid methyl esters from the sample to determine the fatty acid profile of the corresponding seed.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60 / 711,755, filed Aug. 26, 2005, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention relates to systems and methods for the high throughput screening and identification of fatty acid composition signatures in biological materials such as seeds. [0003] Oil seeds are valuable crops with many nutritional and industrial uses due to their unique chemical composition. Accordingly, seed breeders are continually trying to develop varieties of oil seeds to maximize oil seed yield and / or production. As such, grain handlers and seed breeders must be able to distinguish an oil seed from a regular seed to make important decisions in a grain handling situation or in a seed breeding operation. Such decisions have traditionally been based on statistical sampling of a population of seeds because determining the fat...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005] The present invention relates to systems and methods for screening seeds to determine their fatty acid characteristics. The systems and methods are particularly adapted for high-throughput and automation, which permits greater sampling than was previously practical. Further, the high-throughput, automated and non-destructive sampling permitted by at least some of the embodiments of this invention allow for the screening and testing of every seed in a population, whereby the seeds that do not express the desired fatty acid characteristics can be culled. Further, embodiments of this invention are fully transportable such that testing of most or all of the seeds in a population can be completed in the field. Thus, the rapid assays provided by the present invention, which typically require less than about 10 minutes total analysis time, are ideally suited for the identity testing of oil seeds at grain elevators, oil processing plants, food formulations laboratories and the like or in seed breeding applications where large numbers of small samples must be analyzed to make immediate planting decisions. Accordingly, the systems and methods of the present invention greatly speed up the process of evaluating a population of seeds, for example, in making effective purchasing or handling decisions in the field or in making planting decisions when bulking a given seed population in a breeding program so that time and resources are not wasted in growing plants without desired traits.

Problems solved by technology

Such decisions have traditionally been based on statistical sampling of a population of seeds because determining the fatty acid characteristics of a population of seeds has been laborious and time consuming.

However, statistical sampling necessarily allows some seeds without the desirable trait to remain in the population, and also can inadvertently exclude some seeds from the desired population.

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