Abstract
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 [7,7,8,8-2H4]16:0 that was incorporated into cell lipids to unsaturated fatty acids, cel converted 72%. In addition, cel contains higher levels of 18:3δ9,12,15 than wild-type, and synthesizes two fatty acids, 20:2δ11,14 and 20:3δ11,14,17, found at only trace levels in wild-type. Thus, the Δ15-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.
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Stafford, A.E., McKeon, T.A. & Goodrich-Tanrikulu, M. Conversion of palmitate to unsaturated fatty acids differs in a Neurospora crassa mutant with impaired fatty acid synthase activity. Lipids 33, 303–306 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-998-0209-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-998-0209-7