Patent ID: 8318463

Claim:
A method for the production of at least one polyunsaturated fatty acid comprising: a) providing an isolated microbial host cell comprising: i) a recombinant nucleotide molecule encoding a polypeptide having delta-8 desaturase activity, wherein the polypeptide has at least 90% amino acid identity, based on the Clustal V method of alignment, when compared to amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of: SEQ ID NO:21, SEQ ID NO:22, SEQ ID NO:23 and SEQ ID NO:24; and ii) a source of a substrate polyunsaturated fatty acid selected from the group consisting of eicosadienoic acid and eicosatrienoic acid; b) growing the isolated microbial host cell of step (a) under conditions wherein eicosadienoic acid is converted to dihomo-qamma-linolenic acid and eicosatrienoic acid is converted to eicosatetraenoic acid; and c) optionally recovering the dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid or eicosatetraenoic acid or both of step (b).