Cloning and characterization of a stearoyl-ACP desaturase gene from Jatropha curcas

Abstract

Using degenerate primers and RT-PCR, RACE techniques, a 1491 bp cDNA segment of stearoyl-acyl carrier protein desaturase (SAD) is cloned from developing seeds of Jatropha curcas L. The segment contains a 1191 bp of complete open reading frame (ORF). Analysis in the BLAST on NCBl shows that Jatropha curcas SAD (JSAD) gene encodes a protein precursor composed of a signal peptide of 33 amino acids and a mature peptide of 363 amino acids. The homological analysis shows that JSAD has high level of homology both in nucleotide sequence and in amino acid sequence to other plants SADs. The nucleotide and peptide identity of JSAD to Ricinus communis SAD (RSAD) is up to 89% and 96.2% respectively. Molecular modeling of JSAD indicates that its three-dimensional structure strongly resembled the crystal structure of RSAD.