Gene and Biosynthesis of Docosahexaenoic Acid in Moritella marina

Abstract

Docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, is an essential fatty acid that the human body cannot directly synthesized. Thus, a daily intake of 250-500 mg DHA as a dietary supplement is recommended. For industrial DHA production, marine bacteria have been considered potential alternative producers of DHA. Moritella marina is an efficient source for in this study since it could produce omega-3 fatty acids such as DHA via two pathways: anaerobic polyketide synthase (PKS) type II and conventional aerobic pathway using desaturase and elongase. This article presents the discussion of biological pathways for the synthesis of DHA and related genes in the pathway of polyketide synthase and metabolic pathways related to enzyme desaturase and elongase. M. marina, which has been reported to produce high levels of DHA compared to other strains, was selected as an important model for the strategies to increase DHA production. This article discusses trends in the development of M. marina to be applied in further studies.