University of Tasmania
Browse
- No file added yet -

Metabolic engineering plant seeds with fish oil-like levels of DHA

Download (407.03 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-19, 08:08 authored by Petrie, JR, Shrestha, P, Zhou, X-R, Mansour, MP, Liu, Q, Belide, S, Peter Nichols, Singh, SP

Background

Omega-3 long-chain (≥C20) polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω3 LC-PUFA) have critical roles in human health and development with studies indicating that deficiencies in these fatty acids can increase the risk or severity of cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases in particular. These fatty acids are predominantly sourced from fish and algal oils, but it is widely recognised that there is an urgent need for an alternative and sustainable source of EPA and DHA. Since the earliest demonstrations of ω3 LC-PUFA engineering there has been good progress in engineering the C20 EPA with seed fatty acid levels similar to that observed in bulk fish oil (∼18%), although undesirable ω6 PUFA levels have also remained high.

Methodology/Principal Findings

The transgenic seed production of the particularly important C22 DHA has been problematic with many attempts resulting in the accumulation of EPA/DPA, but only a few percent of DHA. This study describes the production of up to 15% of the C22 fatty acid DHA in Arabidopsis thaliana seed oil with a high ω3/ω6 ratio. This was achieved using a transgenic pathway to increase the C18 ALA which was then converted to DHA by a microalgal Δ6-desaturase pathway.

Conclusions/Significance

The amount of DHA described in this study exceeds the 12% level at which DHA is generally found in bulk fish oil. This is a breakthrough in the development of sustainable alternative sources of DHA as this technology should be applicable in oilseed crops. One hectare of a Brassica napus crop containing 12% DHA in seed oil would produce as much DHA as approximately 10,000 fish.

History

Publication title

PLoS One

Volume

7

Issue

11

Article number

e49165

Number

e49165

Pagination

1-7

ISSN

1932-6203

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Place of publication

United States

Rights statement

Copyright: 2012 Petrie et al. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Processed fish and seafood products

Usage metrics

    University Of Tasmania

    Categories

    Keywords

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC