Pyruvate production in Candida glabrata: manipulation and optimization of physiological function

Candida glabrata, a multi-vitamin auxotrophic yeast, can accumulate a large amount of pyruvate extracellularly using glucose as the carbon source, a characteristic that has facilitated the cost-effective biotechnological production of pyruvate on an industrial scale. In this review, we describe the current advances in further improving the performance of C. glabrata for efficient pyruvate production, which includes: optimization of the vitamin and dissolved oxygen concentrations, regulation of intracellular cofactor levels and improvement of the environmental robustness of C. glabrata. We also discuss the current efforts using systems biology to understand the metabolism of C. glabrata. Finally, perspectives on engineering and exploiting C. glabrata as a cell factory for efficiently producing various chemicals and materials are discussed.