Camelina, a Swiss knife for plant lipid biotechnology
Camelina has emerged in the last decade as a multipurpose crop plant particularly suitable for engineering new lipids for diverse uses, including feed, biofuel and green chemistry. The rebirth of this ancient crop was based on several intrinsic favorable characteristics: robust agronomic qualities, attractive oil profile, genetic proximity with the model plant arabidopsis, ease of genetic transformation by floral dip. The need to increase both the production and diversity of plant oils, while improving the sustainability of agricultural systems, has been the driving forces behind the ever increasing investment in camelina research. Worldwide interest in engineering camelina has led to the development of a remarkable pipeline that allows the rapid production and phenotyping of new lines; it includes specific tools, such as databases, collections of natural accessions, methods of genetic transformation and lipid analysis. Implementation of numerous metabolic pathways in camelina for the production of novel lipids has highlighted the potential as well as the versatility of this new "old" oilseed crop that is well on the way to becoming an ideal plant chassis for lipid synthetic biology.