Team:Evry Paris-Saclay/Description
Plants have a power!
Humans have always been eating plants, but not many people know the real powers plants have! A big part of their wealth lies in the vitamins and essential oils they produce. They also contain many active molecules that we, as humans, have been using for medical purposes. In that sense, nature is a huge source of knowledge. In order to properly use nature we need to carefully study it to finely understand its true essence. Technologies based on lack of knowledge lead us to over-exploitation, deforestation, forest fires, and more generally to global warming that is changing ecosystems. We are dangerously close to losing some of the knowledge nature can give us. That's why we have developed a heightened sense of interest in it.
We have noticed that plants contain many interesting molecules, and that some of them are essential to our survival because our bodies cannot produce them by ourselves. Among them are unsaturated fatty acids.
Fatty acids are present on the cell membranes of our body and play a major role in tissue signaling and participate in the energy metabolism in the formation of ATP. Our diet is therefore our only source to get these fatty acids; two of them are essential precursors: linoleic acid as Omega-3 and linolenic acid as Omega-6 [1].
These fatty acids are essential to our survival, and keeping a balance between the two families of fatty acids seems to be a secret (not so secret) of longevity. As a matter of fact, there are disparities between regions of the world about the Omega-6/ Omega-3 ratio which can lead to inflammatory phenomena or cancer induction, among other complications [1].
In addition to these two essential fatty acids, other unsaturated fatty acid molecules are studied because of their medicinal properties.
Then as we can see, fatty acids have interesting properties and are even essential !
The main difficulties encountered in the production of these fatty acids is their high cost of production, and the negative impact it has on the plants these molecules are extracted from. That is why we wanted to focus our project on the synthesis of these rare unsaturated fatty acids. Our goal is to synthesize unsaturated fatty acids using a modified yeast strain as chassis. In order to know if our project was feasible and viable, we questioned ourselves about the means needed to succeed in our approach and the different consequences resulting from such a project. We performed a “Human Practice” study to address the different environmental, economic, legal, political and social issues linked to the production of rare fatty acids. For this, we have deepened the analysis and met professionals who played a major role in our project.
One of their secret keys
Their double bonds! Our team is interested in unusual fatty acids and in particular Conjugated Linolenic Acids (CLnA) [2].
| Name | Nomenclature | Structure | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha-eleostearic acid | C18:3 (9Z, 11E, 13E) |  |
[3] |
| Beta-eleostearic acid | C18:3 (9Z, 11Z, 13Z) |  |
[4] |
| Catalpic acid | C18:3 (9Z, 11Z, 13E) |  |
[5] |
| Alpha-calendic acid | C18:3 (8E, 10E, 12Z) |  |
[6],[7] |
| Beta-calendic acid | C18:3 (8E, 10E, 12E) |  |
[6],[7] |
| Jacaric acid | C18:3 (8Z, 10E, 12Z) |  |
[8] |
| Punicic acid | C18:3 (9Z, 11E, 13Z) |  |
[9] |
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