Production of β-carotene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae through altering yeast lipid metabolism
Journal article, 2021

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a widely used cell factory for the production of fuels and chemicals. However, as a non-oleaginous yeast, S. cerevisiae has a limited production capacity for lipophilic compounds, such as β-carotene. To increase its accumulation of β-carotene, we engineered different lipid metabolic pathways in a β-carotene producing strain and investigated the relationship between lipid components and the accumulation of β-carotene. We found that overexpression of sterol ester synthesis genes ARE1 and ARE2 increased β-carotene yield by 1.5-fold. Deletion of phosphatidate phosphatase (PAP) genes (PAH1, DPP1, and LPP1) also increased β-carotene yield by twofold. Combining these two strategies resulted in a 2.4-fold improvement in β-carotene production compared with the starting strain. These results demonstrated that regulating lipid metabolism pathways is important for β-carotene accumulation in S. cerevisiae, and may also shed insights to the accumulation of other lipophilic compounds in yeast.

β-carotene

lipid components

Saccharomyces cerevisiae

lipid metabolism pathways

Author

Yijin Zhao

Beijing University of Chemical Technology

Yueping Zhang

China Agricultural University

Jens B Nielsen

BioInnovation Institute

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Beijing University of Chemical Technology

Zihe Liu

Beijing University of Chemical Technology

Biotechnology and Bioengineering

0006-3592 (ISSN) 1097-0290 (eISSN)

Vol. 118 5 2043-2052

Subject Categories

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Microbiology

Other Industrial Biotechnology

DOI

10.1002/bit.27717

PubMed

33605428

More information

Latest update

4/28/2021