A conserved evolutionary mechanism permits Δ9 desaturation of very-long-chain fatty acyl lipids.

Δ9 fatty acyl desaturases introduce a cis-double bond between C9 and C10 of saturated fatty acyl chains. From the crystal structure of the mouse stearoyl-CoA desaturase (mSCD1) it was proposed that Tyr-104, a surface residue located at the distal end of the fatty acyl binding pocket plays a key role in specifying 18C selectivity. We created mSCD1-Y104G to test the hypothesis that eliminating this bulky side chain would create an opening and permit the substrate's methyl end to protrude through the enzyme into the lipid bilayer, facilitating the desaturation of very-long-chain (VLC) substrates. Consistent with this hypothesis, Y104G acquired the ability to desaturate 24C and 26C acyl-CoAs while maintaining its Δ9-regioselectivity. We also investigated two distantly related very-long-chain fatty acyl (VLCFA) desaturases from Arabidopsis, ADS1.2 and ADS1.4, which have Ala and Gly, respectively, in place of the gatekeeping Tyr found in mSCD1. Substitution of Tyr for Ala and Gly in ADS1.2 and ADS1.4, respectively, blocked their ability to desaturate VLCFAs. Further, we identified a pair of fungal desaturase homologs which contained either an Ile or a Gly at this location and showed that only the Gly-containing desaturase was capable of very-long-chain desaturation. The conserved desaturase architecture wherein a surface residue with a single bulky side chain forms the end of the substrate binding cavity predisposes them to single amino acid substitutions that enable a switch between long- and very-long-chain selectivity. The data presented here show that such changes have independently occurred multiple times during evolution.