Background The commercial oil palm (Jacq. OT1, T2, T3, OT4, OT6 and T9. The major QTLs for IV and C16:0 on LGOT1 explained 60.0 C 69.0?% of the phenotypic trait variation and were validated in two self-employed BC2 populations. The genomic interval contains several important structural genes in the FA and oil biosynthesis pathways such as and and also a relevant transcription element (TF), Jacq.) is the major Akt2 oil crop in the world today [1, 2]. The wide range of applications (80.0C85.0?%) for mesocarp oil is due to its FAC which is suitable for making common consumable products (e.g. cooking oil, butters and margarine), pharmaceuticals and 130430-97-6 IC50 animal feedstocks. In addition, palm oil has industrial applications, e.g. making biodiesel, oleochemicals, cosmetics and textiles. Palm oil 130430-97-6 IC50 offers roughly equivalent proportions of saturated and unsaturated FAs. The saturated FAs are palmitic (C16:0, 44.0?%), stearic 130430-97-6 IC50 (C18:0, 4.5?%), myristic (C14:0, 1.1?%), arachidic (C20:0, 0.3?%) and lauric (C12:0, 0.2?%). The unsaturated FAs include 39.2?% oleic (C18:1), 10.1?% linoleic (C18:2), 0.3?% linolenic (C18:3) and 0.1?% palmitoleic (C16:1) [3, 4]. In comparison, the mesocarp oil from your American oil palm, oil can be selected to have a composition closer to oil [6, 7]. The desired FAC in Colombian oil makes the palm an ideal material for introgression into elite such as the MPOB Nigerian germplasm (T128), which is already known for its higher unsaturated oil content [8, 9]. The T128 germplasm has been distributed as a high IV material [MPOBs PORIM Series 2 (PS2)] and extensively used in numerous interspecific breeding programs by the oil palm market [9, 10]. Consequently, it is important to capture the favourable alleles linked to high IV in the successive hybrids and backcrosses. The producing interspecific hybrid human population was found to be segregating for IV and major FA qualities which allowed for recognition of QTLs linked to these traits. A number of QTLs for IV and FAC located on the T128 parental genetic map and mostly flanked by amplified fragment size polymorphism (AFLP) and restricted fragment size polymorphism (RFLP) markers were reported by Singh FA synthesis happens in the plastid and the growing FA chain is definitely held by acyl carrier protein (ACP). Subsequently, acyl-ACPs are hydrolysed by acyl-ACP thioesterases and the resulting non-esterified FAs exported to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) for assembly into TAGs [12, 13]. Recently, oil palm transcriptome data from developing fruits (particularly from your mesocarp cells) were used to investigate the regulatory mechanisms of genes and transcription factors (TFs) governing the synthesis of FA and TAG [14, 15]. The formation of FA destined for oil accumulation starts around 110?days after pollination (DAP) and reaches its peak at 120 DAP. It is during this period that TAGs begin to accumulate in the mesocarp and reach a maximum at 160 DAP [14]. The transcriptome data have also opened up new avenues to develop candidate markers for FA biosynthesis genes with oil palm orthologues recognized for -ketoacyl-ACP synthases (and and pseudo-backcross-one (BC1) genetic map. Among the 14 SNP markers, four located within the confidence intervals of QTLs linked to IV and FAC [16, 17]. Taking a slightly different approach, potential candidate genes and a TF associated with biosynthesis of FA and TAG were recognized 130430-97-6 IC50 in the major QTL regions exposed in this study. This was carried out by comparing the QTL areas (linked to FAC) to the oil palm genome assembly [18]. Markers based on these candidate genes were developed to saturate the QTL intervals. The saturated QTL areas exposed closely linked markers and, if validated across different genetic backgrounds, these markers could have utility inside a MAS system. A similar approach has been applied with great success in rice and even oil palm, in identifying candidate genes linked to mapped QTLs [19, 20]. The second part of this study focused on validating the regularity.