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Isolation and characterization of a long-chain acyl-coenzyme A synthetase encoding gene from the marine microalga Nannochloropsis oculata

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Abstract

Acyl-coenzyme A synthetases (ACSs) are associated with the anabolism and catabolism of fatty acids and play fundamental roles in various metabolic pathways. The cDNA of long-chain acyl-coenzyme A synthetase (LACS), one of the ACSs, was isolated from Nannochloropsis oculata and named as NOLACS. The predicted amino acid sequence was highly similar to LACSs of other species. NOLACS encodes a long-chain acyl-coenzyme A synthetase; it recovered the function of LACS in Saccharomyces cerevisiae YB525 (a LACS-deficient yeast strain). The substrate specificity of the enzyme was also assayed in yeast. It was found that NOLACS can activate saturated fatty acids (C12:0, C14:0, C16:0, and C18:0) and some unsaturated fatty acids (C18:2Δ9, 12 and C20:2Δ11, 14) with a preference for long-chain fatty acids. Our findings will provide a deep understanding of CoA-dependent fatty acid activation and also make some contribution to understanding the metabolic pathways of lipids in Nannochloropsis. These findings will also facilitate studies on the regulation of gene expression and genetic modification of fatty acid synthesis and storage of N. oculata.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Jeffrey I. Gordon of Washington University of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA, for kindly providing the yeast mutant strain S. cerevisiae YB525. This work was supported by the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program, 2011CB200901) and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2007AA09Z427) and Basic Research Program of Municipal Burea of Science and Technology of Qingdao (09-1-3-22-jch).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Applied Microalgae Biology, Key Laboratory of Mariculture of Ministry of Education of China, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, China

    Lin Zhang, Xiaolei Ma, Baohua Zhu, Jichang Han & Kehou Pan

  2. College of Marine Life Sciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, China

    Guanpin Yang

  3. Key Laboratory of Marine Drugs of Ministry of Education of China, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, China

    Wengong Yu

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  1. Lin Zhang
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  7. Kehou Pan
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Correspondence to Kehou Pan.

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Zhang, L., Ma, X., Yang, G. et al. Isolation and characterization of a long-chain acyl-coenzyme A synthetase encoding gene from the marine microalga Nannochloropsis oculata . J Appl Phycol 24, 873–880 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-011-9707-y

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