Rape

Rape (Brassica napus) belong to the Brasiceae family. Rape plant is valuable from economic and agronomic point of view. Rape is the main raw material for production of alimentary oil. Oil is the most important reserve material accumulated in seeds. In terms of chemical composition, the oil represents glycerine ether with various fatty acids.

From the economic point of view, rape is important not only as a source of alimentary oils. As petroleum reserves decline, importance of biofuels is growing. More and more biofuels are produced from plant oils. Sudden changes in temperature are very dangerous to rape. Sudden falls of temperature from positive to negative damage cellular structure of the plant. Therefore, importance a need for cold- and frost-resistant rape is huge. Transgenic, cold-resistant plants are being developed by means of transferring of genes determining cold-resistance from the plants, which are more cold-resistant than rape. The Agrobacterium tumefacients transformation system is used for transformation of rape the most often.