GENES ENCODING FATTY ACID DESATURASES FROM SORGHUM BICOLOR

摘要

This invention relates to the fatty acid desaturase genes, designated SbDES2 and SbDES3, cloned from an expressed sequence tag (EST) database prepared from isolated root hairs from sorghum. Heterologous expression of the cDNAs in S. cerevisiae revealed that recombinant SbDES2 converted palmitoleic acid (16:1 ?⁹) to hexadecadienoic acid (16:2?^9,12), and that recombinant SbDES3 was capable of converting hexadecadienoic acid into hexadecatrienoic acid (16:3?^9,12,15). Desaturase enzymes capable of performing desaturation reactions producing a terminal double bond have not previously been characterized in a plant system.