Delta-6 desaturase makes a different fatty acid profile of seed oil in Iranian borage (Echium amoenum Fisch. and Mey.)

Iranian borage (Echium amoenum) from Boraginaceae is a valuable medicinal plant native to Iran and Syria. We determined fatty acid profile and individual fatty acid contents in E. amoenum seed oil using gas chromatography. Nevertheless, the cumulative amount of ω-6 and ω-3 fatty acids in E. amoenum (78.5 %) was in great accordance with those of other species of Echium, Stearidonic acid (SDA, C18:4ω3) and gamma-linolenic acid (GLA, C18:3ω6) constituted only 9.7 % of seed oil in this plant. This observation elucidated the weak activity of delta-6 desaturase (D6DES) in E. amoenum compared with D6DESs of other species. As D6DES enzyme is responsible for converting linoleic acid (LA, C18:2ω6) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA, C18:3ω3) to GLA and SDA, we isolated coding sequence of D6DES gene and characterized primary structure of the translated protein to probably find some evidences explaining the weak activity of D6DES enzyme in E. amoenum. Gene sequence from E. amoenum showed a high identity of 94–96 % with the other Echium species and the amino acid homology increased by 98 %. All the expected signatures including cytochrome b5 domain and three conserved histidine-rich motifs were found in the translated amino acid sequence. Protein alignment revealed that all the conserved motifs in D6DES sequence from E. amoenum are coincident with its counterparts from other Echium species. However, secondary structure of the enzyme deduced from its primary structure using computational simulation represented obvious differences with D6DES proteins of the other species.