초록
<P><B>Background</B></P><P>Arachidonic acid (ARA), which is a ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid, has a wide range of biological activities and is an essential component of cellular membranes in some human tissues. <I>Mortierella alpina</I> is the best strain for industrial production of ARA. To increase its yield of arachidonic acid, heavy ion beam irradiation mutagenesis of <I>Mortierella alpina</I> was carried out in combination with triclosan and octyl gallate treatment.</P><P><B>Results</B></P><P>The obtained mutant strain F-23 ultimately achieved an ARA yield of 5.26 g L<SUP>− 1</SUP>, which is 3.24 times higher than that of the wild-type strain. In addition, quantitative real-time PCR confirmed that the expression levels of fatty acid synthase (FAS), Δ5-desaturase, Δ6-desaturase, and Δ9-desaturase were all significantly up-regulated in the mutant F-23 strain, especially Δ6- and Δ9-desaturase, which were up-regulated 3- and 2-fold, respectively.</P><P><B>Conclusions</B></P><P>This study confirmed a feasible mutagenesis breeding strategy for improving ARA production and provided a mutant of <I>Mortierella alpina</I> with high ARA yield.</P>