Genetic manipulation for developing desired engineered oil crops

Challenges in oil-producing crops continue to exist with major obstruction being imposed by biotic and abiotic factors. The technology-driven oil crops have reflected innovative discoveries and developments in chemistry and bioengineering. Researchers chase to enhance the oil production and extend new oil products that could expand into the pharmaceutical, chemical, and other applications. The main part about this development is the ability to regulate crop metabolism and development, with more accuracy and outcome. Current technologies for gene editing have already started to leave an impact in renewing the crop varieties in more resilient ways. However, it is substantial to identify that previous older technologies would continue to have an important role in facing the agricultural challenges in addition to the recent transgenic approaches. The combinations of recombinant gene technology and tissue culture methods have provided the effective transformation and yield of transgenic crops. Among them, gene silencing is one of the mechanisms to improve the oil crops in different ways, e.g., virus-induced gene silencing is broadly used to modify crops with enhanced tolerance for biotic and abiotic stresses. The genetically engineered crops with antifungal plant defensins, molecules having a crucial role in the immunity of crops, will enhance salt and drought tolerance. Phytohormones and glutamine synthetase, an enzyme involved in the nitrogen metabolism, are of paramount importance in creating environmental and herbicide-tolerant plants and so on. Therefore, this chapter provides an overview about the advancement of transgenic approaches for adopting engineering technologies in oil crops, needed in both developed and developing world.