Isolation and characterization of fatty acid desaturase genes from peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Fatty acid desaturases are responsible for the insertion of double bonds into pre-formed fatty acid chains in reactions that require oxygen and reducing equivalents. In this study, genes for FAB2, FAD2-2, FAD6 and SLD1, were cloned from peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.). The ORFs of the four genes were 1,221, 1,152, 1,329 and 1,347 bp in length, encoding 406, 383, 442 and 448 amino acids, respectively. The predicted amino acid sequences of AhFAB2, AhFAD2-2, AhFAD6, AhSLD1 shared high sequence identity of 79, 76.2, 73.4 and 61% to the corresponding ones in Arabidopsis, respectively. Heterologous expression in yeast was used to confirm the regioselectivity and the function of AhFAD2-2 and AhFAD6. Linoleic acid (18:2), normally not present in wild-type yeast cells, was detected in transformants of these two genes. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR analysis indicated that the transcript abundances of AhFAB2 and AhFAD2-1 were higher in seed than that in other tissues examined. On the other hand, transcript of AhFAD2-2, AhFAD6 and AhSLD1 showed higher abundances in leaves. In addition, these five genes showed different expression patterns during seed development. These results indicated that the five genes may have different biochemical functions during vegetative growth and seed development.