Page 31 - ebook

[F. Others] F-15

Identification and characterization of FATTY ACID

BIOSYNTHESIS 2 genes

Hyun Ah Choi¹, Hyun Uk Kim¹*

¹Department of Bioindustry and Bioresource engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Korea

Perilla is one of the oilseed crops cultivated mainly in Korea and Asia. Perilla seed has 43% triacylglycerol (TAG),
which is composed of 64% of α-linolenic acid and 14 % of linoleic acid. These polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs)

have the advantage of lowering cholesterol levels in humans. Fatty acid biosynthesis 2 (FAB2) is responsible for
forming a double bond in catalyzing 18:0-acyl carrier protein (ACP) to 18:1-ACP in the plastid. 18:1-ACP is

transported to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and is used as a precursor to synthesize PUFAs. In this study, we
identified the FAB2 gene from the wild-type diploid perilla (Perilla citriodora) and the cultivated tetraploid perilla

(Perilla frutescens var. frutescens) genomes. Sequence analysis revealed that P. citriodora has two copies of PfrFAB2A
and PfrFAB2B, which is different from Arabidopsis has one copy of FAB2. The P.frutescens has four copies of

PfrFAB2A-1, PrFAB2A-2, PfrFAB2B-1, and PfrFAB2B-2, which is indicating that tetraploid perilla came from natural
crossing between P.citrodora and unidentified diploid perilla. To test the functional activity of perilla FAB2 genes,

we will conduct a complementation test by transforming perilla FAB2 genes to Arabidopsis fab2 mutant.