Fg. Dunlap et al., FATTY-ACID COMPOSITION OF OIL FROM EXOTIC CORN BREEDING MATERIALS, Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society, 72(9), 1995, pp. 989-993
The fatty acid composition of corn oil can be altered to meet consumer
demand for ''healthful'' fats. The first step in altering the oils is
to survey existing corn breeding materials for fatty acid composition
. The Latin American Maize Project (LAMP), an international program de
signed to evaluate the agronomic characteristics of maize accessions i
n Latin American and U.S. germplasm banks for future use, provides use
ful starting materials. LAMP was based on the cooperative efforts of 1
2 countries. In a two-stage evaluation, the project identified the hig
hest-yielding open-pollinated top 20% of populations, then approximate
ly the top 5% of those 20%. Twenty of the populations from four countr
ies with temperate climates were randomly selected for fatty acid anal
ysis. The populations were from United States, Chile, Argentina, and U
ruguay. Fifty S-1 lines from each population were randomly chosen for
analysis for a total of 1,000 genotypes sampled. Statistical differenc
es in fatty acid composition were computed among the 20 populations an
d among the four countries. The findings showed a wide range of fatty
acid profiles present in unadapted, elite corn breeding materials with
ranges for each fatty acid as follows: palmitic acid, 6.3-18.2%; stea
ric acid, 0.9-4.5%; oleic acid, 18.5-46.1%; linoleic acid, 36.6-66.8%;
linolenic acid, 0.0-2.0%; and arachidic acid, 0.0-1.4%. Several popul
ations were significantly different from the others. Some lines had un
usual fatty acid compositions, including one with 8.3% total saturates
and another with 20.2% total saturates. This study shows that existin
g corn breeding materials could be used to produce high- and low-satur
ate oils, but other methods would probably be required to produce a hi
gh-oleic corn oil.