Objectives: Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFAs) are beneficial to human health. However, the n-3 PUFAs contents of the livestock meat that we consume daily are relatively low. Utilization of transgenic technology to increase n-3 PUFAs contents in livestock may solve this problem. Results: The omega-3 fatty acid desaturase (FAD3), encoded by fat1 gene derived from Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), converts omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-6 PUFAs) to n-3 PUFAs. In the study, a plasmid containing the codon-optimized C. elegansfat1 gene (mfat1) was constructed and used to produce transgenic beef cattle by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Fourteen transgenic calves were obtained, and the ratio of n-6 to n-3 PUFAs in the transgenic calves decreased from 5.33: 1 to 0.95: 1 compared with negative controls. Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that the codon-optimized C. elegansmfat1 gene can be functionally expressed in the beef cattle and converts n-6 PUFAs to n-3 PUFAs.
CITATION STYLE
Cheng, G., Fu, C., Wang, H., Adoligbe, C., Wei, S., Li, S., … Zan, L. (2015). Production of transgenic beef cattle rich in n-3 PUFAs by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Biotechnology Letters, 37(8), 1565–1571. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-015-1827-z
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