One goal of green chemistry is the production of industrially useful fatty acids (FAs) in crop plants. We focus on hydroxy fatty acids (HFAs) and conjugated polyenoic FAs (α-eleostearic acids [ESAs]) using Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) as a model. These FAs are found naturally in seed oils of castor (Ricinus communis) and tung tree (Vernicia fordii), respectively, and used for the producti...

a field experiment was conducted during 2009-2011 at the aligarh muslim university agricultural research farm, india, to evaluate the efficacious nature of some oil-seed cakes such as neem cake and castor cake, a botanical calotropis procera and phosphate solubilizing bacteria (psb) pseudomonas fluorescens singly and in various combinations, on the growth and productivity of trigonella plant. g...

Castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) is one of the most important non-edible oilseed crops. Characterization of seed development and lipid accumulation from female flowers pollinated to mature seeds has been carried out. The temporal expression patterns of 65 lipid genes involved in fatty acid and triacylglycerol biosynthesis using the semi-quantitative RT-PCR technique were also investigated. The...

Seeds of the castor plant Ricinus communis are of forensic interest because they are the source of the poison ricin. We tested whether stable isotope ratios of castor seeds and ricin preparations can be used as a forensic signature. We collected over 300 castor seed samples worldwide and measured the C, N, O, and H isotope ratios of the whole seeds and oil. We prepared ricin by three different ...

Castor bean and Jatropha contain seed oil of industrial importance, share taxonomical and biochemical similarities, which can be explored for identifying SSRs in the whole genome sequence of castor bean and utilized in Jatropha curcas. Whole genome analysis of castor bean identified 5,80,986 SSRs with a frequency of 1 per 680 bp. Genomic distribution of SSRs revealed that 27% were present in th...

Plant-specific GRAS transcription factors play important roles in regulating growth, development, and stress responses. Castor beans (Ricinus communis) are important non-edible oilseed plants, cultivated worldwide for its seed oils and its adaptability to growth conditions. In this study, we identified and characterized a total of 48 GRAS genes based on the castor bean genome. Combined with phy...

Ricinoleic acid, an industrially useful hydroxy fatty acid (HFA), only accumulates to high levels in the triacylglycerol fraction of castor (Ricinus communis) endosperm, even though it is synthesized on the membrane lipid phosphatidylcholine (PC) from an oleoyl ester. The acyl chains of PC undergo intense remodeling through the process of acyl editing. The identities of the proteins involved in...

Ricinoleic acid, an industrially useful hydroxy fatty acid (HFA), only accumulates to high levels in the triacylglycerol fraction of castor (Ricinus communis) endosperm, even though it is synthesized on the membrane lipid phosphatidylcholine (PC) from an oleoyl ester. The acyl chains of PC undergo intense remodeling through the process of acyl editing. The identities of the proteins involved in...

The seeds of the Ricinus communis (Castor bean) plant are the source of the economically important commodity castor oil. Castor seeds also contain the proteins ricin and R. communis agglutinin (RCA), two toxic lectins that are hazardous to human health. Radial immunodiffusion (RID) and the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) are two antibody-based methods commonly used to quantify ricin a...

In 2009 a National Security Science and Technology grant was awarded to the Human Protection and Performance Division for the investigation of several forensic aspects of the castor bean plant Ricinus communis. A major focus of this grant was to understand the chemical composition of the seeds, and to ascertain if these differences could be used for provenance classification. This technical rep...