Mutagenesis of the borage Delta(6) fatty acid desaturase.

The consensus sequence of the third histidine box of a range of Delta(5), Delta(6), Delta(8) and sphingolipid desaturases differs from that of the membrane-bound non-fusion Delta(12) and Delta(15) desaturases in the presence of glutamine instead of histidine. We have used site-directed mutagenesis to determine the importance of glutamine and other residues of the third histidine box and created a chimaeric enzyme to determine the ability of the Cyt b(5) fusion domain from the plant sphingolipid desaturase to substitute for the endogenous domain of the Delta(6) desaturase.