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Production of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5n-3) in transgenic peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) through the alternative Δ8-desaturase pathway

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Abstract

An important alternative source of fish oil is its production by plants through metabolic engineering. To produce eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5n-3) in peanut through the alternative Δ8-pathway, a plant expression vector containing five heterologous genes driven by the constitutive 35S promoter respectively, namely, ∆9-elongase (Isochrysis galbana), ∆8-desaturase (Euglena gracilis), ∆5-desaturase (Mortierella alpina), ∆15-desaturase (Arabidopsis thaliana) and ∆17-desaturase (Phytophthora infestans) were transferred into peanut through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method. The gas chromatography results indicated that the average content of EPA in the leaves of the transgenic lines was 0.68%, and the highest accumulation of EPA in an individual line reached 0.84%. This finding indicates that it is feasible to synthesize EPA in peanut through metabolic engineering and lays the foundations for the production of very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLCPUFAs) in peanut seeds.

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Abbreviations

EPA:

Eicosapentaenoic acid

VLCPUFAs:

Very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids

DHA:

Docosahexaenoic acid

LA:

Linoleic acid

ALA:

α-Linolenic acid

6-BA:

6-Benzyl aminopurine

NAA:

1-Naphthylacetic acid

MCS:

Multiple cloning site

CTAB:

Cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide

Elo :

Elongase

Des :

Desaturase

GC:

Gas chromatography

FAMEs:

Fatty acid methyl esters

GC–MS:

Gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer

ETrA:

Eicosatrienoic acid

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Shandong Province Peanut Seed Industry Project, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31601336, 31271757) and the National Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology (2016KF09). The sequencing and assembly were performed by the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI).

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Author notes

  1. Chenchen Wang and Xiaohe Qing contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, Shandong Agricultural University, Taian, 271000, Shandong, China

    Chenchen Wang, Xiaohe Qing, Mingli Yu, Fengzhen Liu & Xinzheng Li

  2. College of Life Science, Shandong Agricultural University, Daizong Road No. 61, Taian, 271000, Shandong, China

    Chenchen Wang, Xiaohe Qing, Mingli Yu & Xinzheng Li

  3. Shandong Peanut Research Institute, Qingdao, 266100, Shandong, China

    Quanxi Sun

  4. College of Agronomy, Shandong Agricultural University, Taian, 271000, Shandong, China

    Fengzhen Liu

  5. Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    Baoxiu Qi

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  1. Chenchen Wang
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Correspondence to Xinzheng Li.

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Wang, C., Qing, X., Yu, M. et al. Production of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5n-3) in transgenic peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) through the alternative Δ8-desaturase pathway. Mol Biol Rep 46, 333–342 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-018-4476-1

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