Isolation and characterisation of a high-efficiency desaturase and elongases from microalgae for transgenic LC-PUFA production.

The production of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids from precursor molecules linoleic acid (LA; 18:2omega6) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA; 18:3omega3) is catalysed by sequential desaturase and elongase reactions. We report the isolation of a front-end Delta6-desaturase gene from the microalgae Ostreococcus lucimarinus and two elongase genes, a Delta6-elongase and a Delta5-elongase, from the microalga Pyramimonas cordata. These enzymes efficiently convert their respective substrates when transformed in yeast (39-75% conversion for omega3 substrate fatty acids), and the Delta5-elongase in particular displays higher elongation efficiency (75% for conversion of eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5omega3) to docosapentaenoic acid (22:5omega3)) than previously reported genes. In addition, the Delta6-desaturase is homologous with acyl-CoA desaturases and shows a strong preference for the omega3 substrate ALA.