Isolation and Characterization of Delta 15 Desaturase (FAD3) Gene From Camelina sativa L.

Omega 3 desaturase (fatty acid desaturase 3 or delta 15 desaturase) is an important polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) in oilseeds which plays a great role in converting 18:2 to 18:3. Omega 3 fatty acids have a crucial function in human and plants physiological activity due to presence in cell transmembrane.

In the present study, at first the fatty acid desaturase 3 (FAD3) gene was cloned from Camelina sativa by cloning via T/A cloning vector (pTG19-T plasmid) and sequenced it. Second, some different bioinformatics software were used to characterize the CsFAD3 gene and its protein.

Sequencing analysis of the CsFAD3 gene showed that this fragment contains 1164 bp and the start and stop codons were ATG and TAA, respectively. The bioinformatics analysis of this gene can provide important information on the gene and protein structure. The alignment of cloned sequence was done with other FAD3 sequences which revealed three conserved histidine boxes. The results based on Neighbor-Joining (NJ) alignment showed that there is a close relationship between the oilseeds from the same family such as Brassica napus and Camelina sativa in relation with their bioinformatics characteristics.

It can be concluded that isolated gene (CsFAD3) can be used to increase the conversion of 18:2 to 18:3 unsaturated fatty acid to improve oilseed quality for human food. It was found that CsFAD3 is a transmembrane protein which can convert ω6 to ω3 fatty acids and may simultaneously act as an ion channel in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).