A COMMON weed has been genetically altered to produce essential fatty acids normally only obtainable from fish.
Oily fish and supplements such as cod liver oil are full of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, a necessary nutrient for keeping heart, brain, skin and joints healthy. In the plant world, only algae produce such fatty acids.
Other plants produce short-chain omega-3 fatty acids, which can be converted into longer-chained ones in the body. 鈥淏ut that鈥檚 not very efficient,鈥� says Gary Dobson of the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee, UK.
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Dobson and his colleagues took two genes from algae and one from a fungus and added them to the weed Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress (Nature Biotechnology, DOI: 10.1038/nbt972). These genes provided the two additional carbon atoms and two carbon double bonds necessary to turn the weed鈥檚 short-chain omega-3 fatty acid into the long-chain type found in oily fish
鈥淭his is a first in producing fish-type fatty acids in plants,鈥� says Dobson. The plant does not produce enough omega-3 to be useful as a dietary source, however, and the researchers say that the greatest benefit would come from genetically tweaking crops such as linseed, half of whose oil is made up of short-chain omega-3.