%0 Journal Article
%T Improvement of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Production in Echium acanthocarpum Transformed Hairy Root Cultures by Application of Different Abiotic Stress Conditions
%A Rafael Z¨˘rate
%A Elena Cequier-S¨˘nchez
%A Covadonga Rodr¨Şguez
%A Roberto Dorta-Guerra
%A Nabil El Jaber-Vazdekis
%A ¨˘ngel G. Ravelo
%J ISRN Biotechnology
%D 2013
%R 10.5402/2013/169510
%X Fatty acids are of great nutritional, therapeutic, and physiological importance, especially the polyunsaturated n-3 fatty acids, possessing larger carbon chains and abundant double bonds or their immediate precursors. A few higher plant species are able to accumulate these compounds, like those belonging to the Echium genus. Here, the novel E. acanthocarpum hairy root system, which is able to accumulate many fatty acids, including stearidonic and ¦Á-linolenic acids, was optimized for a better production. The application of abiotic stress resulted in larger yields of stearidonic and ¦Á-linolenic acids, 60 and 35%, respectively, with a decrease in linoleic acid, when grown in a nutrient medium consisting of B5 basal salts, sucrose or glucose, and, more importantly, at a temperature of 15ˇăC. The application of osmotic stress employing sorbitol showed no positive influence on the fatty acid yields; furthermore, the combination of a lower culture temperature and glucose did not show a cumulative boosting effect on the yield, although this carbon source was similarly attractive. The abiotic stress also influenced the lipid profile of the cultures, significantly increasing the phosphatidylglycerol fraction but not the total lipid neither their biomass, proving the appropriateness of applying various abiotic stress in this culture to achieve larger yields. 1. Introduction Lipids in general and fatty acids (FA) in particular are essential metabolites displaying many key biological functions, acting as structural components of cell membranes, energy sources, and known intermediates in signaling pathways, besides their broad interest due to their important roles in human health and nutrition [1¨C6]. Oil producing plants could be an alternative dietary ingredient source of omega or n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) for the aquaculture industry; thus, it would be interesting to establish how the environmental factors modulate PUFA production in plants. These lack the ability to move to avoid possible environmental stress situations and, therefore, have to adapt to their environment in many different ways, and, similar to that described for fishes, temperature is one of the most influential environmental factors. Cold acclimation and the acquisition of freeze tolerance require the orchestration of many different seemingly disparate physiological and biochemical changes, including increasing sugar levels, soluble proteins, proline, certain organic acids, and new protein isoforms, alteration of lipidic membrane, and particularly differential expression of many genes
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.biotechnology/2013/169510/