Phosphatidic Acid Phosphatase and Diacylglycerol Acyltransferase: Potential Targets for Metabolic Engineering of Microorganism Oil

Oleaginous microorganism is becoming one of the most promising oil feedstocks for biodiesel production due to its great advantages in triglyceride (TAG) accumulation. Previous studies have shown that de novo TAG biosynthesis can be divided into two parts: the fatty acid biosynthesis pathway (the upstream part which generates acyl-CoAs) and the glycerol-3-phosphate acylation pathway (the downstream part in which three acyl groups are sequentially added onto a glycerol backbone). This review mainly focuses on two enzymes in the G3P pathway, phosphatidic acid phosphatase (PAP) and diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT). The former catalyzes a dephosphorylation reaction, and the latter catalyzes a subsequent acylation reaction. Genes, functional motifs, transmembrane domains, action mechanism, and new studies of the two enzymes are discussed in detail. Furthermore, this review also covers diacylglycerol kinase, an enzyme that catalyzes the reverse reaction of diacylglycerol formation. In addition, PAP and DGAT...