Patent ID: 8049070

Claim:
An isolated polynucleotide comprising: (a) a nucleotide sequence encoding a polypeptide having delta-5 desaturase activity, wherein the polypeptide has at least 80% amino acid identity, based on the Clustal W method of alignment, when compared to an amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:2; (b) a nucleotide sequence encoding a polypeptide having delta-5 desaturase activity, wherein the nucleotide sequence has at least 80% sequence identity, based on the BLASTN method of alignment, when compared to a nucleotide sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 or SEQ ID NO:3; (c) a nucleotide sequence encoding a polypeptide having delta-5 desaturase activity, wherein the nucleotide sequence selectively hybridizes to a nucleotide sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 or SEQ ID NO:3 under the following stringency conditions: 50% formamide, 1M sodium chloride and 1% SDS at 37° C. followed by a wash in 0.1×SSC at 60° C.; or (d) a complement of the nucleotide sequence of (a), (b) or (c), wherein the complement and the nucleotide sequence consist of the same number of nucleotides and are 100% complementary.