Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation of Oil Bodies from Seeds

Effects of pH on the Composition and Physical Stability of Peanut Oil Bodies from Aqueous Enzymatic Extraction

Peanut oil body (POB), which is rich in unsaturated fatty acids and bioactive substances, is widely used in cosmetics, food, and medicine. Compared with synthetic emulsifiers, peanut oil bodies have health advantages as natural emulsions. The physicochemical properties of oil bodies affect their food processing applications. To improve peanut oil body yield, cell-wall-breaking enzymes were screened for aqueous enzymatic extraction. The optimum conditions were as follows: enzymatic hydrolysis time, 2 h; material-to-liquid ratio, 1 : 5 ( $m/v$ ); enzyme concentration, 2% ( $v/m$ ); and temperature, 50°C. Oil body stability was closely related to pH. With increasing pH, the average particle size and zeta-potential of the oil bodies increased, indicating aggregation, as confirmed by microstructure analysis. At pH 11, exogenous proteins at the oil body interface were eluted, leaving endogenous proteins, which led to a decreased interfacial protein content and oil body aggregation. Therefore, oil body stability decreased under alkaline pH conditions, but no demulsification occurred.

Turning Over a New Leaf in Lipid Droplet Biology

Lipid droplets (LDs) in plants have long been viewed as storage depots for neutral lipids that serve as sources of carbon, energy, and lipids for membrane biosynthesis. While much of our knowledge of LD function in plants comes from studies of oilseeds, a recent surge in research on LDs in non-seed cell types has led to an array of new discoveries. It is now clear that both evolutionarily conserved and kingdom-specific mechanisms underlie the biogenesis of LDs in eukaryotes, and proteomics and homology-based approaches have identified new protein players. This review highlights some of these recent discoveries and other new areas of plant LD research, including their role in stress responses and as targets of metabolic engineering strategies aimed at increasing oil content in bioenergy crops.