TECHNOLOGY BRIEF

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Description: This invention discloses Acyl-Acp desaturase enzymes with altered substrate specificities and double bond placement activities in addition to the means for generating such altered enzymes.

Commercial, Technical and Competitive Merit: The utility of oils from plants ranges from their use as and in foods to their use as a starting compound in the production of diverse industrial products ranging from paint hardeners to nylon. Classically, Acyl-acp desaturase enzymes, which are species and tissue specific, are capable of producing a mono-unsaturated fatty acid of a specific length and double-bond placement. This technology discloses the means to alter not only the substrate specificity, but also the placement of the double bond within a given substrate. Through this technology it is possible to engineer a desaturase that can produce a modified fatty acid that is the desired length and contains a double bond in the exactly desired place within the fatty acid chain.

Inventors: Shanklin, J., and Cahoon, E. B., both of BNL; Lindqvist, Y. and Schneider, G., both of the Karolinska Institute

Patent Status: U. S. Patents 5,705,391; 5,888,790 and 6,100,091. Foreign Applications Pending.

License Status: Available on a negotiable basis, including exclusive field of use licenses.

Literature References: Cahoon, E. B., et al. (1997) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94, 4872-4877; Cahoon, E. B., Coughlan, S. J. and Shanklin, J. (1997) Plant Molecular Biology 33, 1105-1110; Cahoon, E. B., Mills, L. A. and Shanklin, J. (1996) J. Bacteriology 178, 936-939.