Abstract
Abstract Burgeoning demand for long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) due to their established pharmacological and economic significances along with the declining sources of fish urge to explore the sustainable sources of LC-PUFA. Being the predominant LC-PUFA source for marine fishes at the base of the aquatic food web, microalgae has been hailed as a promising natural source for LC-PUFA. However, the potential of algal systems to overproduce LC-PUFA via metabolic engineering is warranted to meet the ever-increasing demand. In this study, we identified and overexpressed Δ6-desaturase, the key enzyme involved in fatty acid desaturation and exemplified its potential on elevating PUFA and lipid content in Nannochloropsis oceanica. Δ6-desaturase overexpression enhanced growth and photosynthetic efficiency. Transgenic cells exhibited a remarkable increase in EPA content and reached up to 652.35 mg/g DW, , the highest EPA production in transgenic N. oceanica by expressing a single key enzyme without impeding growthin a transgenic heterokontgreen alga. Total lipid content was significantly increased by 1.7-fold in the transgenic cell than WT. Together, these findings exemplify a potential candidate for LC-PUFA overproduction and also open a new avenue for sustainable production of microalgal PUFAs.
Highlights
Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA; ≥C20) are the predominant structural molecules of biological membranes and pivotal dietary compounds that play a potential role in human mental and physical developmental processes thereby garnered significant research attention (Kabeya et al, 2018)
Marine fish are considered the primary sources for LC-PUFA, declining fisheries and Concurrent Overproduction of Lipids and PUFAs contamination of toxic pollutants have provided the impetus to explore a sustainable alternative to depleting conventional sources (Wang et al, 2017)
LC-PUFA biosynthesis is initiated by -9 desaturase to introduce first unsaturation in saturated stearic acid (C18:0) to yield oleic acid (18:1, n-9), which is subsequently unsaturated into LA by -12 desaturase
Summary
Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA; ≥C20) are the predominant structural molecules of biological membranes and pivotal dietary compounds that play a potential role in human mental and physical developmental processes thereby garnered significant research attention (Kabeya et al, 2018). These PUFAs are primarily synthesized by marine photosynthetic microalgae and accumulated into fish lipids by the aquatic food chain. Despite the involvement of various key proteins, 6-desaturase of the ω3 pathway has been considered as a unique rate-limiting enzyme in EPA biosynthesis that present in algae but not in plants (Zhu et al, 2017)
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