Philip Bates

The Bates lab had a great time presenting at the European Symposium on Plant Lipids in Bonn Germany. Graduate student Sean McGuire did a great job, and I didn't see anyone sleeping during my presentation so that is always a bonus!

Rapid quantification of whole seed fatty acid amount, composition, and shape phenotypes from diverse oilseed species with large differences in seed size - Plant Methods Background Seed oils are widely used in the food, biofuel, and industrial feedstock industries, with their utility and value determined by total oil content and fatty acid composition. Current high th...

Ever notice analytical methods based on one species/tissue tend to not work well when you change species? In our recent publication we optimized methods to analyze seed oil content from 7 species with large differences in seed size and fatty acid composition.

link.springer.com/10.1186/s130...

Comparative Omics Reveals Unanticipated Metabolic Rearrangements in a High-Oil Mutant of Plastid Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase Heteromeric acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase) catalyzes the ATP-dependent carboxylation of acetyl-CoA to produce malonyl-CoA, which is the committed step for de novo fatty acid synthesis. In plants, ACC...

I'm excited to share this collaborative work investigating the metabolic rearrangements that occur when fatty acid synthesis is deregulated.

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Excessive leaf oil modulates the plant abiotic stress response via reduced stomatal aperture in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) Understanding the response of future crops to adverse conditions, including high temperatures, is crucial. We describe the impact of high temperature stress on a high lipid producing biofuel tobacco ...

Excited to share this new collaborative work with my lab and Doug Allen and Melia Gehan labs at the Danforth Plant Science Center doi.org/10.1111/tpj....

Towards rational control of seed oil composition: dissecting cellular organization and flux control of lipid metabolism Abstract. Plant lipids represent a fascinating field of scientific study, in part due to a stark dichotomy in the limited fatty acid (FA) composition of ce

The second article from my lab in the current Feb 2025 issue of Plant Physiology is this review together with collaborator Jay Shocky
doi.org/10.1093/plph...

Triacylglycerol stability limits futile cycles and inhibition of carbon capture in oil-accumulating leaves Engineering oil accumulation in leaves produces unanticipated futile cycles of carbon flux between starch and oil, whereas stabilization of the oil limits

The current Feb 2025 issue of Plant Physiology has two articles from my lab, the first is identifying bottlenecks for production of oil in vegetative biomass tissues.
doi.org/10.1093/plph...

I was honored to be part of the webinar!

#ASPBPlantPhysMonday #ICYMI

Sean McGuire senior grad student in the lab did a great job presenting his 3 minute thesis at the WSU Plant Molecular Sciences symposium.

Just a week left to apply for this postdoc position in my lab in Oxford.

Identification of triacylglycerol remodeling mechanism to synthesize unusual fatty acid containing oils - Nature Communications Triacylglycerol remodeling in Physaria fendleri changes the seed oil fatty acid composition after initial synthesis to overcome metabolic bottlenecks in the accumulation of valuable unusual fatty acid...

Again for the Blue Sky community, here is one of the top publications from my lab from 2024. Discovery of the mechanisms to of a new pathway of plant oil biosynthesis!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The first intron and promoter of Arabidopsis DIACYLGLYCEROL ACYLTRANSFERASE 1 exert synergistic effects on pollen and embryo lipid accumulation Accumulation of triacylglycerols (TAGs) is crucial during various stages of plant development. In Arabidopsis, two enzymes share overlapping functions to produce TAGs, namely acyl-CoA:diacylglycerol.....

Since my lab is new here, here are some of our recent results!
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

This account is for updates from Bates plant lipid lab and all science relating to it. Prior account on Twitter was @BatesLipidLab that will no longer be active soon. We also have a Bates Lipid Lab facebook group.