Agricultural Research Service

Awards Issued Prior to January 20, 2025, Were Funded Under Previous Administrations and May Not Reflect the Priorities and Policies of the Current Administration. Vegetable Oils Have Been Used for Millennia as a Major Human and Animal Nutritional Component. Cottonseed Oil Is a Key Vegetable Oil, and Has Been Used as an Ingredient in Margarines, Frying Oils, Spreads, Salad Dressings, and Many Other Food and Feed Applications. Though Its Primary Fatty Acid Composition Is Not Markedly Different That Many Other Plant Oils, Cotton Is One of a Small Number of Plants That Produces Novel Cyclopropyl Fatty Acids (CPFAS) in Its Seeds and Roots. Recent Studies Compared the Blood Lipid Profiles of Mice and Human Subjects That Had Been Fed High-fat Diets Rich in Various Types of Oils, Including Safflower, Olive, and Cottonseed. Strong Lipid-lowering Effects Conducive to Increased Heart Health Were Seen Only in the Cottonseed Oil-rich Subjects. Cpfas Were Identified as the Likely Active Component. as Such, Cottonseed Oil Shows Great Promise as Natural Biobased 'BIOPHARMACEUTICAL' That Could Compete With Statins and Other Drugs as a Treatment for Highcholesterol. Thus, New Research Objectives Have Been Undertaken to Identify the Biochemical Pathways and Key Genes That Produce Cotton Cpfas, Towards the Longer-term Goal of Breeding and Engineering New Cottonseed Varieties That Contain Altered Quantities and Profiles of Cpfas.