[Heterologous expression of stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1 in Lactococcus lactis NZ3900]

The possibility of heterologous expression of human Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase (scd1) was investigated. The scd1 encoding sequence was inserted into the pNZ8149 to generate the pNZ8149-scd1 expression plasmids. Then we introduced the pNZ8149-scd1 construct into the Lactococcus lactis NZ3900 to investigate its enzyme activity. The results show that heterologous expressed SCD1 enzyme resulted in a 92%-169% increase in the C16:1n-7 and a 53-127% increase in the C18:1n-7 (P<0.05). The SCD1 enzyme was capable of producing n-7 fatty acids in Lactococcus lactis efficiently. It also suggests that the fatty acid desaturases can be heterologous expressed in Lactococcus lactis to produce the helpful fatty acids.