Metabolic engineering of long chain-polyunsaturated fatty acid biosynthetic pathway in oleaginous fungus for dihomo-gamma linolenic acid production

Microbial lipids are promising alternative sources of long chain-polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) for food, feed, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical sectors. Dihomo-γ-linolenic acid (C20:3Δ8,11,14; DGLA) is an important LC-PUFAs with anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative effects. To generate a DGLA-producing strain, fatty acid reconstitution in Aspergillus oryzae was performed by metabolic engineering through co-expression of codon-optimized Pythium Δ6-desaturase and Δ6-elongase, which had high conversion rates of substrates to respective products as compared to the native enzymes. The Δ6-desaturated and Δ6-elongated products, γ-linolenic acid (C18:3Δ6,9,12; GLA) and DGLA, were accumulated in phospholipids rather than triacylglycerol. Interestingly, the manipulation of lipid quality in the oleaginous fungus did not affect growth and lipid phenotypes. This strategy might expand to development of the oleaginous fungal strain for producing other tailor-made oils with industrial applications.