Background : Perilla (Perilla frutescens) seed oil is known to contain high omega-3 fatty acid than other plant oils. This study was aimed to investigate the fatty acid composition in seeds of 255 perilla accessions from South Korea and recommend the potential genetic resources rel ated to their fatty acid composition.
Method and Results : Total oil was extracted by soxhlet extraction apparatus and the fatty acid compositions were analyzed by gas chromatography (GCMS QP2010 ULTRA, SHIMADZU, JP). Total oil contents ranged from 22.41 and 47.62% with an average content of 34.20%. Palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, and linolenic acid contributed 4.46 to 7.67%, 1.64 to 4.11%, 9.15 to 26.39%, 11.89 to 28.76%, and 50.24 to 64.16% to the total oil content, respectively. Seeds from Jeollabuk-do showed the highest average total oil content (41.14%) compared to other regions (p < 0.05), while the linolenic acid composition was the highest in the samples from Chungcheongnam-do (59.48%) (p < 0.05). The cluster analysis segregated the perilla seed accessions into two major clusters. ANOVA revealed that there was a significant difference between group Ⅰ and group Ⅱ (p < 0.05). Group Ⅰ (86 accessions) characterized as higher palmitic, stearic, oleic, and linolenic acid compositions than group Ⅱ (169 accessions). The highest content of linolenic acid were recorded in accessions K126190, K135903, and IT283646 from group Ⅰ, and accessions IT108680, IT208894, and IT111050 from group Ⅱ had high total oil content. Linoleic acid content showed a strong negative correlation with palmitic acid (r = -0.726*) and oleic acid (r = -0.678*) content. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the first two principal components together explained 68.75% total variation.
Conclusion : Our results showed that accessions K126190, K135903, IT283646 which exhibited high linolenic acid composition and accessions IT108680, IT208894, IT111050 which exhibited high total oil composition, could be useful to develop new functional oil materials.