Aims: To investigate the genetic determinates for conjugated linolenic acid (CLNA) production in Lactobacillus plantarum ZS2058, a high CLNA producer. Methods and Results: After culturing with a-linolenic acid (ALA) in the medium, the fatty acid compositions of supernatant fluid and cell pellets were analysed via GC-MS. cis9,trans11,cis15-CLNA was identified to be the predominant isomer. And during CLNA production, 10-hydroxy-cis12-cis15octadecenoic acid (10-HOEA) and 10-oxo-cis12-cis15-octadecenoic acid (10-OXOA) were accumulated. The E. coli recombinants harbouring genes encoding myosin-cross-reactive antigen (MCRA), short-chain dehydrogenase/ oxidoreductase (DH) and acetoacetate decarboxylase (DC), respectively, were analysed for their roles in CLNA production. The results indicated that MCRA converted ALA to 10-HOEA, following converted to 10-OXOA by DH. While with the combination of three recombinants, ALA could be transformed into CLNA plus 10-HOEA and 10-OXOA. When the three genes were deleted, none of the L. plantarum ZS2058 knockout mutants could produce any CLNA, after complementation, and all the complementary mutants recovered the CLNAproduction ability at similar levels as the wild strain. Conclusions: Lactobacillus plantarum ZS2058 produced CLNA from ALA with 10-HOEA and 10-OXOA as intermediates. The triple-component isomerase of MCRA, DH and DC was the unique genetic determinant for CLNA generation. Significance and Impact of the Study: The current results firstly provided conclusive evidence that the triple-component isomerase complex was shared by both CLA and CLNA production in lactobacilli. ley et al. 2009;Hennessy et al. 2011;Gorissen et al. 2015;Yang et al. 2015). Generally, CLNA could be divided into two parts according to its sources, which are plant-derived CLNA and microbial-derived CLNA. The most studied plant-derived CLNA included jacaranda acid (cis8,trans10, cis12-CLNA), marigold acid (trans8,trans10,cis12-CLNA), pomegranate acid (cis9,trans11,cis13-CLNA) and eleostearic acid (cis9,trans11,trans13-CLNA) (Yuan et al. 2014). Compared with plant-derived CLNA isomers, microbial CLNA showed different conjugated double bonds, such as cis9,trans11,cis15-CLNA, trans9,trans11,cis15-CLNA and cis6,cis9,trans11-CLNA (Hennessy et al. 2012).