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Food Lipids: Chemistry, Nutrition, and Biotechnology

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2. Basic Features<br />

The functional units of FAS are essentially identical for all living organisms (10).<br />

These functional units will be designated by the acronyms appearing in Table 3, in<br />

boldface type, for the balance of this chapter. The distinction between FAS in various<br />

classes of organisms (plants, animals, microbes) lies in compartmentation <strong>and</strong> organizational<br />

structure of FAS, as well in as subtle differences in reaction selectivities<br />

<strong>and</strong> activities of the functional units [viz., enzymes <strong>and</strong> acyl carrier protein (ACP)]<br />

of FAS. These subtle differences account for the markedly different patterns <strong>and</strong><br />

profiles of fatty acid biosynthesis in various classes of organisms.<br />

Because fatty acid biosynthesis is energy intensive, it is subject to metabolic<br />

regulation <strong>and</strong> requires insulation from competing pathways or premature termination.<br />

Fatty acid biosynthesis is metabolically channeled in plants by virtue of an<br />

‘‘ACP track’’ in the plastidic compartment, where the lengthening acyl chain remains<br />

covalently linked to ACP (or to the condensing enzyme) until completely synthesized.<br />

The putative product of FAS systems is palmitic acid in animals, palmitoyl-<br />

CoA in yeasts <strong>and</strong> fungi, <strong>and</strong> palmitoyl-ACP in plants <strong>and</strong> lower bacteria. Some<br />

organisms, especially oil-bearing plants, have the important capability of premature<br />

termination of fatty acids biosynthesis, giving rise to fatty acids of shorter chain<br />

lengths as the principal products (e.g., oils rich in lauric acid). The synthesized fatty<br />

acids are then exported to a ‘‘CoA track’’ in the endoplasmic reticulum, which serves<br />

to channel fatty acyl residues through subsequent <strong>and</strong> characteristic modification<br />

processes of oxygenation, elongation, <strong>and</strong> desaturation. Finally the fatty acids are<br />

assembled into storage <strong>and</strong> functional glycerolipids, principally in the same cellular<br />

compartment.<br />

3. Organization <strong>and</strong> Localization<br />

FAS systems can be classified as type I or II systems. [Historically, type III systems,<br />

or palmitate elongases, have been used to classify elongation activities yielding acyl<br />

chains longer than that of palmitate (10)]. Type I FAS systems are characterized by<br />

multifunctional protein domains, whereas type II FAS systems are characterized by<br />

dissociable proteins, each having a specific, unit activity of the FAS system.<br />

Eukaryotes (<strong>and</strong> some higher prokaryotes, such as Mycobacterium <strong>and</strong> Corynebacterium)<br />

have type I FAS systems, as characterized from liver, adipose, <strong>and</strong><br />

mammary <strong>and</strong> uropygial gl<strong>and</strong> tissues, where the full complement of FAS activities<br />

is located on a single polypeptide domain of about 240 kDa (9). This single polypeptide<br />

has three functional subdomains, one possessing substrate entry <strong>and</strong> condensation<br />

activities of ACAT, MCAT, <strong>and</strong> KAS; the second possessing ACP <strong>and</strong> reducing<br />

activities of KHAD, EAR, <strong>and</strong> KAR; <strong>and</strong> the third, or C-terminal domain,<br />

having TE.* In situ, these FAS systems exist as homodimers where the substrate<br />

entry/condensation subdomain of one monomer channels the lengthening acyl chain<br />

to the reducing subdomain of the other monomer (i.e., functional division of dimer<br />

is not identical to the subunit division of the dimer).<br />

Organizationally, another type I FAS system, such as in yeast, fungi <strong>and</strong> some<br />

higher bacteria, is characterized by a heteromer of two protein domains (�6�6), each<br />

possessing a portion of the total FAS activities (9,60,61). The �-chain has ACP,<br />

*For abbreviations of enzyme activities, see Table 3.<br />

Copyright 2002 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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