Da-Huang Chen¹, Pei-Luen Jiang^{2, 3}, Tzyy-Rong Jinn^4,, Jason T.C. Tzen^{1, 5,}

Agarwood, a resinous heartwood with valuable fragrance, is formed when the Aquilaria trees are injured. In the past two decades, many Aquilaria plants were cultivated for the induction of agarwood in Taiwan. Plenty of Aquilaria seeds are generated annually, and seem to be a reliable agricultural source. However, the constituents of these seeds have not been analyzed. Proximate composition of fresh Aquilaria seeds was analyzed as 44.4% moisture, 24.9% crude lipid, 16.7% carbohydrate, 10.3% crude fiber, 2.4% crude protein, and 1.3% ash. Two major subcellular organelles, abundant oil bodies and large protein bodies, were observed in electron microscopy. Protein bodies are possibly composed of soluble 2 S albumin and insoluble 11 globulin storage proteins. Oil bodies presumably encapsulate abundant storage lipids with oleosin and caleosin. The storage lipids in oil bodies were mainly neutral lipids (> 90% triacylglycerols and ~5% diacylglycerols). Fatty acids released from these neutral lipids were highly unsaturated with approximately 80% of oleic acid. Oily Aquilaria seed is an adequate source of neutral lipids rich in unsaturated oleic acid, and its oil bodies may serve as storage pools for the accumulation of unique agarwood lipid compounds after the tree is substantially injured for years.

Aquilaria, protein body, oil body, oily seed, oleic acid