Mammals cannot naturally produce omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids — beneficial nutrients found mainly in fish oil — from the more abundant omega-6 (n-6) fatty acids and so they must rely on a dietary supply¹. Here we show that mice engineered to carry a fat-1 gene from the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans can add a double bond into an unsaturated fatty-acid hydrocarbon chain and convert n-6 to n-3 fatty acids. This results in an abundance of n-3 and a reduction in n-6 fatty acids in the organs and tissues of these mice, in the absence of dietary n-3. As well as presenting an opportunity to investigate the roles played by n-3 fatty acids in the body, our discovery indicates that this technology might be adapted to enrich n-3 fatty acids in animal products such as meat, milk and eggs.

1. Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA
2. Department of Dermatology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA

Correspondence to: Jing X. Kang¹ Email: kang.jing@mgh.harvard.edu

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