A nutritionally-enhanced oil from transgenic Camelina sativa effectively replaces fish oil as a source of eicosapentaenoic acid for fish

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 5; no. 1; p. 8104
• Main Authors: Betancor, M B, Sprague, M, Usher, S, Sayanova, O, Campbell, P J, Napier, J A, Tocher, D R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 29.01.2015
• Subjects: Algae; Animal Feed; Animals; Aquaculture; Brassicaceae - chemistry; Brassicaceae - genetics; Cecum - drug effects; Cecum - metabolism; Diet; DNA - metabolism; Docosahexaenoic Acids - metabolism; Eicosapentaenoic acid; Eicosapentaenoic Acid - administration & dosage; Eicosapentaenoic Acid - pharmacology; Fish oils; Fish Oils - pharmacology; Gene Expression Profiling; Liver - drug effects; Liver - metabolism; Muscles - drug effects; Muscles - metabolism; Nutritive Value; Oilseeds; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; Plant Oils - pharmacology; Plants, Genetically Modified; Polyunsaturated fatty acids; Reproducibility of Results; Salmo salar - growth & development; Seafood; Seeds; Seeds - drug effects; Seeds - metabolism; Survival Analysis; Transcriptome - genetics
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep08104

For humans a daily intake of up to 500 mg omega-3 (n-3) long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) is recommended, amounting to an annual requirement of 1.25 million metric tonnes (mt) for a population of 7 billion people. The annual global supply of n-3 LC-PUFA cannot meet this level of requirement and so there is a large gap between supply and demand. The dietary source of n-3 LC-PUFA, fish and seafood, is increasingly provided by aquaculture but using fish oil in feeds to supply n-3 LC-PUFA is unsustainable. Therefore, new sources of n-3 LC-PUFA are required to supply the demand from aquaculture and direct human consumption. One approach is metabolically engineering oilseed crops to synthesize n-3 LC-PUFA in seeds. Transgenic Camelina sativa expressing algal genes was used to produce an oil containing n-3 LC-PUFA to replace fish oil in salmon feeds. The oil had no detrimental effects on fish performance, metabolic responses or the nutritional quality of the fillets of the farmed fish.