| Literature DB >> 15067141 |
Kazuhiro Saeki1, Kazuya Matsumoto, Mikio Kinoshita, Iwane Suzuki, Yasushi Tasaka, Koichiro Kano, Yoshitomo Taguchi, Koji Mikami, Masumi Hirabayashi, Naomi Kashiwazaki, Yoshihiko Hosoi, Norio Murata, Akira Iritani.
Abstract
Linoleic acid (18:2n-6) and alpha-linolenic acid (18:3n-3) are polyunsaturated fatty acids that are essential for mammalian nutrition, because mammals lack the desaturases required for synthesis of Delta12 (n-6) and n-3 fatty acids. Many plants can synthesize these fatty acids and, therefore, to examine the effects of a plant desaturase in mammals, we generated transgenic pigs that carried the fatty acid desaturation 2 gene for a Delta12 fatty acid desaturase from spinach. Levels of linoleic acid (18:2n-6) in adipocytes that had differentiated in vitro from cells derived from the transgenic pigs were approximately 10 times higher than those from wild-type pigs. In addition, the white adipose tissue of transgenic pigs contained approximately 20% more linoleic acid (18:2n-6) than that of wild-type pigs. These results demonstrate the functional expression of a plant gene for a fatty acid desaturase in mammals, opening up the possibility of modifying the fatty acid composition of products from domestic animals by transgenic technology, using plant genes for fatty acid desaturases.Entities:
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Year: 2004 PMID： 15067141 PMCID： PMC404050 DOI： 10.1073/pnas.0308111101
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ISSN： 0027-8424 Impact factor: 11.205