Metabolic engineering of β-carotene biosynthesis in Yarrowia lipolytica

Carotenoids, as potent antioxidant compounds, have gained extensive attention, especially in human health. In this study, the combination of CRISPR/Cas9 integration strategy and fermenter cultivation was utilized to obtain efficient β-carotene-producing Yarrowia lipolytica cell factories for potential industrial application.

The introduction of the genes of Mucor circinelloides, encoding phytoene dehydrogenase (carB) and bifunctional phytoene synthase/lycopene cyclase (carRP), contributed to the heterologous production of β-carotene in Y. lipolytica XK2. Furthermore, β-carotene production was efficiently enhanced by increasing the copy numbers of the carB and carRP genes and overexpressing of GGS1, ERG13, and HMG, the genes related to the mevalonate (MVA) pathway. Thus, the optimized strain overexpressed a total of eight genes, including three copies of carRP, two copies of carB, and single copies of GGS1, HMG, and ERG13. As a consequence, strain Y. lipolytica XK19 accumulated approximately 408 mg/L β-carotene in shake flask cultures, a twenty-four-fold increase compared to the parental strain Y. lipolytica XK2.

4.5 g/L β-carotene was obtained in a 5-L fermenter through a combination of genetic engineering and culture optimization, suggesting a great capacity and flexibility of Y. lipolytica in the production of carotenoids.