Biosynthesis of a specifically deuteriated diunsaturated fatty acid (18:2/sub Δ 6,9/) for 2H NMR membrane studies

A unique procedure for the biosynthesis and subsequent isolation of a series of specifically deuteriated cis,cis-octadeca-6,9-dienoic acids has been developed. An auxotroph of Tetrahymena, which lacks Δ9 and Δ12 desaturase activity, is supplemented with specifically deuteriated oleic acid and converts it to the corresponding deuteriated cis,cis-octadeca-6,9-dienoic acid, 18:2/sup Δ6,9/. The deuteriated fatty acid is subsequently isolated by argentation chromatography and HPLC. To demonstrate the utility of the procedure, we describe here the biosynthesis of cis,cis-octadeca-6,9-dienoic acid deuteriated at positions 9 and 10. Gas and thin-layer chromatography of the isolated fatty acid showed that it was greater than 99% pure while 13C NMR and mass spectrometry of the O-(trimethylsilyl) derivative confirmed that the 18-carbon fatty acid contains two double bonds located at positions 6 and 9. The yield, from an 11-L culture, was typically 100 mg of which 35% was found to be deuteriated at both the 9- and 10-positions. The deuteriated fatty acid was esterified to 1-hexadecanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, and aqueous, multilamellar dispersions of the lipid were studied by 2H NMR. Each spectrum consists of two overlapping powder patterns and therefore yields two quadrupolar splittings. Over a temperature range of 0 to 400C, one splitting decreases from 6.6 to 1.8 kHz while other increases from 4.5 to 5.3 kHz. The magnitudes of the two splittings are equivalent between 10 and 150 C. The values of the splittings, and their response to temperature, differ significantly from those of the corresponding deuteriated oleic acid in microbial membranes and in bilayers of 1-hexadecanoyl-2-cis-octadec-9-enoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC)