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Nature 427, 504 (5 February 2004) | doi:10.1038/427504a

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Transgenic mice: Fat-1 mice convert n-6 to n-3 fatty acids

Jing X. Kang1, Jingdong Wang1, Lin Wu2 & Zhao B. Kang1

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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.

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