Production of lycopene by metabolically engineered Pichia pastoris

Lycopene is a highly valued carotenoid with wide applications in various industries. The market demand for lycopene promotes research in metabolic engineering of heterologous hosts for lycopene. In this study, Pichia pastoris strain GS115 was genetically engineered to produce lycopene by integrating the heterologous lycopene biosynthesis genes from Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC13032. The resulting strain, L₁, produced 0.115 mg/g cell dry weight (DCW) lycopene. Through optimization by promoter selection, improving the precursor supply and expanding the Geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP) pool, ultimately, the lycopene yield of the final optimal strain was 6.146 mg/g DCW with shake flask fermentation and 9.319 mg/g DCW (0.714 g/L) in a 3 L fermenter. The lycopene yield in this study is the highest yield of lycopene in P. pastoris reported to date, which demonstrated the potential of P. pastoris in lycopene synthesis and as a candidate host organism for the synthesis of other high value-added terpenoids.