INSTITUTE, W.Va. — Researchers at West Virginia State University (WVSU) have uncovered a previously unrecognized relationship between two primary energy reserves in the Arabidopsis plant: starch and oils. The study, conducted in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, was recently published in New Phytologist, a prestigious international journal in plant science.  

Arabidopsis is a genus of small flowering plants in the mustard family and is widely used by scientists as a model organism to study plant biology, genetics and molecular development.

“In simple terms, we discovered that when plants cannot produce enough starch, they compensate by breaking down more of their stored oils to meet their energy needs,” said Dr. Sanju Sanjaya, director of the WVSU Energy and Environmental Science Institute, who led the project along with Changcheng Xu with Brookhaven National Laboratory. 

Understanding and fine-tuning this natural balance could help us develop crops that produce more energy-rich oils for food and renewable biofuels while maintaining healthy growth and efficient photosynthesis, Sanjaya said. 

The full study is available online.

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