Substrate Specificity of Human Long-Chain Acyl-CoA Synthetase ACSL6 Variants

Long-chain acyl-CoA synthetases (ACSLs) are a family of enzymes that convert long-chain free fatty acids into their active form, acyl-CoAs. Recent knock-out mouse studies revealed that among ACSL iso-enzymes, ACSL6 plays an important role in the maintenance of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)-containing glycerophospholipids. Several transcript variants of the human ACSL6 gene have been found; the two major ACSL6 variants, ACSL6V1 and V2, encode slightly different short motifs that both contain a conserved structural domain, the fatty acid Gate domain. In the present study, we expressed recombinant human ACSL6V1 and V2 in Spodoptera frugiperda 9 (Sf9) cells using the baculovirus expression system, and then, using our novel ACSL assay system with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), we examined the substrate specificities of the recombinant human ACSL6V1 and V2 proteins. The results showed that both ACSL6V1 and V2 could convert various kinds of long-chain fatty acids into their acyl-CoAs. Oleic acid was a good common substrate and eicosapolyenoic acids were poor common substrates for both variants. However, ACSL6V1 and V2 differed considerably in their preferences for octadecapolyenoic acids, such as linoleic acid, and docosapolyenoic acids, such as DHA and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA): ACSL6V1 preferred octadecapolyenoic acids, whereas V2 strongly preferred docosapolyenoic acids. Moreover, our kinetic studies revealed that ACSL6V2 had a much higher affinity for DHA than ACSL6V1. Our results suggested that ACSL6V1 and V2 might exert different physiological functions and indicated that ACSL6V2 might be critical for the maintenance of membrane phospholipids bearing docosapolyenoic acids such as DHA.