转基因植物生产超长链多不饱和脂肪酸研究进展

超长链多不饱和脂肪酸(VLCPUFAs)对人类健康非常重要。日常摄入一定量的VLCPUFAs能够补充人体自身合成的不足, 并对某些疾病起到明显的预防和治疗作用。VLCPUFAs主要源自深海鱼油, 但由于市场需求的迅速增长和海洋可捕捞鱼类资源的日益减少, 该途径已经远远不能满足市场的需要, 寻找更为持续且稳定的VLCPUFAs来源已经成为当务之急。最近, 人们已经克隆了VLCPUFAs生物合成相关的去饱和酶和延伸酶基因, 并希望在植物特别是油料作物中共表达这些基因, 使其成为生产VLCPUFAs的“绿色细胞工厂”。目前已有多个研究小组在进行转基因植物合成VLCPUFAs的探索, 并取得了突破性的研究成果。本文综述了相关的研究进展, 并对存在的问题和解决策略进行了探讨。

Advances in Research into the Production of Very Long-chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Transgenic Plants

Very long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLCPUFAs) play important roles in human health. Dietary supplementation with VLCPUFAs can significantly alleviate the symptoms of many diseases. Currently, VLCPUFAs are mainly obtained from the oil of deep-sea fish. However, this source is considered insufficient and endangered because of the expanding market and environmental pollution. Exploiting sustainable and continuable alternative sources of fish oil is urgently needed. Because the biosynthetic pathway of VLCPUFAs has been elucidated and the genes of desaturases and elongases involved have been cloned, many researchers co-express such genes in plants to produce VLCPUFAs. This field is becoming cutting edge in metabolic engineering of oilseed plants. This review focuses on the latest progress in this area. The bottleneck in the biosynthetic pathway and methods of increasing the accumulation of VLCPUFAs are also discussed.