Background: Fatty acid synthase (FAS) is a key enzyme of
de novo lipogenesis (DNL),which has been cloned from
several species:
Gallus gallus
,
Mus musculus
,
Homo sapiens
, but not from
Anas platyrhynchos
. The current study
was conducted to obtain the full-length coding sequence of Peking duck FAS and investigate its expression
during adipocyte differentiation.
Results: Wehave isolated a 7654 bp fragment fromPeking duck adipocytes that corresponds to the FAS gene. The
cloned fragment contains an open reading frame of 7545 bp, encodes a 2515 amino acid protein, and displays
high nucleotide and amino acid homology to avian FAS orthologs. Twelve hour treatment of oleic acid
significantly up-regulated the expression of FAS in duck preadipocytes (
P < 0.05). However, 1000 μM
treatment of oleic acid exhibited lipotoxic effect on cell viability (
P < 0.05). In addition, during the first 24 h of
duck adipocyte differentiation FAS was induced; however, after 24 h its expression level declined (
P < 0.05).
Conclusion: We have successfully cloned and characterized Peking duck FAS. FAS was induced during adipocyte
differentiation and by oleic acid treatment. These findings suggest that Peking duck FAS plays a similar role to
mammalian FAS during adipocyte differentiation.