Conversion of palmitate to unsaturated fatty acids differs in a Neurospora crassa mutant with impaired fatty acid synthase activity.

The Neurospora crassa cel (fatty acid chain elongation) mutant has impaired fatty acid synthase activity. The cel mutant requires exogenous 16:0 for growth and converts 16:0 to other fatty acids. In contrast to wild-type N. crassa, which converted only 42% of the exogenous [7,7,8,8-(2)H4]16:0 that was incorporated into cell lipids to unsaturated fatty acids, cel converted 72%. In addition, cel contains higher levels of 18:3(delta 9,12,15) than wild-type, and synthesizes two fatty acids, 20:2(delta 11,14 and 20:3(delta 11,14,17, found at only trace levels in wild-type. Thus, the delta 15-desaturase activity and elongation activity on 18-carbon polyunsaturated fatty acids are higher for cel than wild-type. This altered metabolism of exogenous 16:0 may be directly due to impaired flux through the endogenous fatty acid biosynthetic pathway, or may result from altered regulation of the synthesis of unsaturated fatty acids in the mutant.