Tocochromanols: Biological Function And Recent Advances To Engineer Plastidial Biochemistry For Enhanced Oil Seed Vitamin E Levels

Tocochromanols (tocopherols and tocotrienols) are important hpophilic antioxidants for animals and humans Their biological activity is expressed as vitamin E activity. This review describes some recent findings about tocochromanol function and their biosynthesis in plants, summarizes the current state of the art of tocochromanol pathway engineering, and compares different strategies to engineer the vitamin E content in cyanobacteria and plants with a focus on oilseed as target tissues. Limitations in our understanding of the tocochromanol biosynthetic pathway are discussed.