Delta-8 desaturase and its use in making polyunsaturated fatty acids
Isolated nucleic acid fragments and recombinant constructs comprising such fragments encoding a delta-8 desaturase along with a method of making long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) using this delta-8 desaturase in plants and oleaginous yeast.
1. An isolated polynucleotide comprising:
(a) a nucleotide sequence encoding a polypeptide having delta 8 desaturase activity, wherein the polypeptide has an amino acid sequence comprising SEQ ID NO:2; or,
(b) a complement of the nucleotide sequence, wherein the complement and the nucleotide sequence consist of the same number of nucleotides and are 100% complementary.
2. The polynucleotide of claim 1 wherein the nucleotide sequence comprises SEQ ID NO:1.
3. A recombinant construct comprising the polynucleotide of claim 1 operably linked to at least one regulatory sequence.
4. A cell comprising the recombinant construct of claim 3 .
5. The cell of claim 4 wherein said cell is a plant cell.
6. A method for transforming a cell, comprising transforming a cell with the recombinant construct of claim 3 and selecting those cells transformed with the recombinant construct of claim 3 .
7. A method for producing a transformed plant comprising transforming a plant cell with the polynucleotide of claim 1 and regenerating a plant from the transformed plant cell.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein the plant is a soybean plant.
9. A seed comprising the recombinant construct of claim 3 .
10. A seed obtained from the plant made by the method of claim 7 or 8 .
11. A method for making long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in a cell comprising:
(a) transforming a cell with the recombinant construct of claim 3 ;
(b) selecting those transformed cells that make long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.
12. A method for making long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in a plant cell comprising:
(a) transforming a cell with the recombinant construct of claim 3 ;
(b) selecting those transformed cells that make long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.
13. A method for producing at least one polyunsaturated fatty acid in a soybean cell comprising:
(a) transforming a soybean cell with a first recombinant DNA construct comprising SEQ ID NO:2, operably linked to at least one regulatory sequence and at least one additional recombinant DNA construct comprising an isolated polynucleotide, operably linked to at least one regulatory sequence, encoding a polypeptide selected from the group consisting of a delta-4, a delta-5, delta-6, a delta-9, a delta-12, a delta-15, and a delta-17 desaturase, a delta-9 elongase, a C18 to C22 elongase and a C20 to C24 elongase;
(b) regenerating a soybean plant from the transformed cell of step (a); and
(c) selecting those seeds obtained from the plants of step (b) having an altered level of polyunsaturated fatty acids when compared to the level in seeds obtained from a nontransformed soybean plant.
14. An oilseed plant comprising the recombinant construct of claim 3 .