Abstract:
Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) are essential for numerous critical biological processes, and elongases of very long chain fatty acids are the rate-limiting enzyme for LC-PUFAs synthesis. The CDS of
Elovl4,
Elovl5 and
Elovl7 were cloned from the unigene database by full-length transcriptome sequencing of
A. dabryanus. Results showed that the open reading frames (ORF) of
Elovl4,
Elovl5 and
Elovl7 were 753, 885 and 846 bp which encoded 250, 294 and 281-residue peptide, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the
Elovl4,
Elovl5 and
Elovl7 clustered with
Lepisosteus oculatus. Tissue expression analysis showed that the highest
Elovl4 level was in the ovary and eye; muscle
Elovl5 level was significantly higher than other tissues and the highest
Elovl7 was in ovary, which was followed by gill and testis (
P<0.05). Starvation significantly decreased the expression of liver
Elovl4,
Elovl5 and
Elovl7 (
P<0.05). Stomach
Elovl4,
Elovl5 and
Elovl7 reduced significantly (
P<0.05) at day 3, and then significantly upregulated. The highest expression levels of
Elovl4,
Elovl5 and
Elovl7 in brain and muscle were at day 7, and then dropped dramatically (
P<0.05). These findings suggest that
Elovl4,
Elovl5 and
Elovl7 may play certain roles in the nutritional regulation of
A. dabryanus, and the specific mechanisms need further investigation.