Characteristics of the fads2 gene promoter in marine teleost Epinephelus coioides and role of Sp1-binding site in determining promoter activity

Δ6 fatty acyl desaturase (Fads2) is a rate-limiting enzyme in long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) biosynthesis. Comparative analysis of gene promoters of Fads2 between salmonids and carnivorous marine sh suggested that the lack of binding site for stimulatory protein 1 (Sp1) was responsible for the low expression of fads2 gene of carnivorous marine species. To con rm this speculation, the fads2 candidate promoter (2646 bp) was cloned from carnivorous marine teleost Epinephelus coioides, and 330 bp core regulatory region was identi ed. Several binding sites for transcriptional factors such as nuclear factor 1, nuclear factorY, sterol regulatory element and hepatocyte nuclear factor 4γ were identi ed, while that for Sp1 was shown to be absent in the promoter by both bioinformatic analysis and site-directed mutation. Moreover, after the Sp1-binding site from the fads2 promoter of herbivorous Siganus canaliculatus, the rst marine teleost demonstrated to have LC-PUFA biosynthetic ability, was inserted into the corresponding region of E. coioides fads2 promoter, activity was signi cantly increased. The results provided direct data for the importance of the Sp1- binding site in determining fads2 promoter activity, and indicated that its lack may be a reason for low expression of fads2 and poor LC-PUFA biosynthetic ability in E. coioides