Abstract
Malic enzyme (ME) catalyses the oxidative decarboxylation of l-malate to pyruvate and provides NADPH for intracellular metabolism, such as fatty acid synthesis. Here, the mitochondrial ME (mME) gene from Mortierella alpina was homologously over-expressed. Compared with controls, fungal arachidonic acid (ARA; 20:4 n−6) content increased by 60 % without affecting the total fatty acid content. Our results suggest that enhancing mME activity may be an effective mean to increase industrial production of ARA in M. alpina.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21276108, 31271812), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents (NCET-13-0831), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2011ARA100905, 2012ARA022105C), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (31125021), the National Basic Research Program 973 of China (2012CB720802), the 111 project B07029, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. JUSRP51320B).
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Hao, G., Chen, H., Du, K. et al. Increased fatty acid unsaturation and production of arachidonic acid by homologous over-expression of the mitochondrial malic enzyme in Mortierella alpina . Biotechnol Lett 36, 1827–1834 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-014-1546-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-014-1546-x