Production of Benzylisoquinoline Alkaloids in Yeast

Research Project, 2019 – 2021

Natural products are a valuable source of pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, feed and food ingredients. Compared to plant extraction and total chemical synthesis, microbial production offers a sustainable route to supply these high-value compounds. In this project, National Resource Centre for Chinese Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Chinese Medical Science and Chalmers University of technology will collaborate and share their complementary knowledge to develop feasible strategies for efficient production of benzylsoquinoline alkaloid (BIA) drugs, which are present in small amounts in traditional Chinese medicine. The Chinese partner will share the experience on developing biochemical method for functional characterization of BIAs biosynthesis and pharmacology approaches for screening active compounds; the Swedish partner will share the knowledge on developing yeast cell factories and synthetic biology tools. This collaboration will lead to a feasible workflow for connecting high throughput characterization of natural product biosynthetic pathways, efficient pathway reconstruction and systematic optimization of cell metabolism with the aid of systems and synthetic biology. Thus, this project will make a substantial contribution to microbial production of natural products.