Engineering the protein secretory pathway of Saccharomyces cerevisiae enables improved protein production
Journal article, 2018

Baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is one of the most important and widely used cell factories for recombinant protein production. Many strategies have been applied to engineer this yeast for improving its protein production capacity, but productivity is still relatively low, and with increasing market demand, it is important to identify new gene targets, especially targets that have synergistic effects with previously identified targets. Despite improved protein production, previous studies rarely focused on processes associated with intracellular protein retention. Here we identified genetic modifications involved in the secretory and trafficking pathways, the histone deacetylase complex, and carbohydrate metabolic processes as targets for improving protein secretion in yeast. Especially modifications on the endosome-to-Golgi trafficking was found to effectively reduce protein retention besides increasing protein secretion. Through combinatorial genetic manipulations of several of the newly identified gene targets, we enhanced the protein production capacity of yeast by more than fivefold, and the best engineered strains could produce 2.5 g/L of a fungal α-amylase with less than 10% of the recombinant protein retained within the cells, using fed-batch cultivation.

Protein secretion

Cell engineering

Endosome-to-Golgi trafficking

Intracellular

Yeast cell factories

Protein retention

Author

Mingtao Huang

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Guokun Wang

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Jiufu Qin

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Dina Petranovic Nielsen

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Jens B Nielsen

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

0027-8424 (ISSN) 1091-6490 (eISSN)

Vol. 115 47 E11025-E11032

Subject Categories

Bioprocess Technology

Medical Biotechnology (with a focus on Cell Biology (including Stem Cell Biology), Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry or Biopharmacy)

Other Industrial Biotechnology

DOI

10.1073/pnas.1809921115

PubMed

30397111

More information

Latest update

10/21/2022