Challenges and tackles in metabolic engineering for microbial production of carotenoids

Construction of a Calibration Curve for Lycopene on a Liquid-Handling Platform─Wider Lessons for the Development of Automated Dilution Protocols

Liquid-handling is a fundamental operation in synthetic biology─all protocols involve one or more liquid-handling operations. It is, therefore, crucial that this step be carefully automated in order to unlock the benefits of automation (e.g., higher throughput, higher replicability). In the paper, we present a study, conducted at the London Biofoundry at SynbiCITE, that approaches liquid-handling and its reliable automation from the standpoint of the construction of the calibration curve for lycopene in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The study has important practical industrial applications (e.g., lycopene is a carotenoid of industrial interest, DMSO is a popular extractant). The study was also an effective testbed for the automation of liquid-handling. It necessitated the development of flexible liquid-handling methods, which can be generalizable to other automated applications. In addition, because lycopene/DMSO is a difficult mix, it was capable of revealing issues with automated liquid-handling protocols and stress-testing them. An important component of the study is the constraint that, due to the omnipresence of liquid-handling steps, errors should be controlled to a high standard. It is important to avoid such errors propagating to other parts of the protocol. To achieve this, a practical framework based on regression was developed and utilized throughout the study to identify, assess, and monitor transfer errors. The paper concludes with recommendations regarding automation of liquid-handling, which are applicable to a large set of applications (not just to complex liquids such as lycopene in DMSO or calibration curves).

Highly flexible cell membranes are the key to efficient production of lipophilic compounds

Lipophilic compounds have a variety of positive effects on human physiological functions and exhibit good effects in the prevention and treatment of clinical diseases. This has led to significant interest in the technical applications of synthetic biology for the production of lipophilic compounds. However, the strict selective permeability of the cell membrane and the hydrophobic nature of lipophilic compounds pose significant challenges to their production. During fermentation, lipophilic compounds tend to accumulate within cell membrane compartments rather than being secreted extracellularly. The toxic effects of excessive lipophilic compound accumulation can threaten cell viability, while the limited space within the cell membrane restricts further increases in production yield. Consequently, to achieve efficient production of lipophilic compounds, research is increasingly focused on constructing robust and multifunctional microbial cell factories. Utilizing membrane engineering techniques to construct highly flexible cell membranes is considered an effective strategy to break through the upper limit of lipophilic compound production. Currently, there are two main approaches to cell membrane modification: constructing artificial storage compartments for lipophilic compounds and engineering the cell membrane structure to facilitate product outflow. This review summarizes recent cell membrane engineering strategies applied in microbial cell factories for the production of liposoluble compounds, discussing the challenges and future prospects. These strategies enhance membrane flexibility and effectively promote the production of liposoluble compounds.

Metabolic Engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for Production of Canthaxanthin, Zeaxanthin, and Astaxanthin

The sustainable production of natural compounds is increasingly important in today's industrial landscape. This study investigates the metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for the efficient biosynthesis of valuable carotenoids: canthaxanthin, zeaxanthin, and astaxanthin. Utilizing a tailored parental yeast strain, Sp_Bc, we optimized the carotenoid pathway by screening and identifying CrtW and CrtZ enzymatic variants. The CrtW variant from Bradyrhizobium sp. achieved a canthaxanthin titer of 425.1 ± 69.1 µg/L, while the CrtZ variant from Pantoea ananatis achieved a zeaxanthin titer of 70.5 ± 10.8 µg/L. Additionally, we optimized carotenoid production by exploring enzyme fusion strategies for all three studied carotenoids and organelle compartmentalization specifically for enhancing astaxanthin synthesis. We further improved carotenoid production by integrating the optimal gene constructs into the yeast genome and deleting the GAL80 gene, enabling the use of sucrose as a carbon source. The engineered strain Sp_Bc-Can001 ∆gal80 was evaluated in a 5 L bioreactor fermentation, achieving a notable canthaxanthin titer of 60.36 ± 1.51 mg/L using sucrose. This research conclusively establishes S. cerevisiae as a viable platform for efficient carotenoid biosynthesis and, for the first time in this yeast system, illustrates sucrose's viability as a carbon source for canthaxanthin production. These findings pave the way for sustainable, cost-effective carotenoid production at an industrial scale.

Ketocarotenoids adonirubin and adonixanthin: Properties, health benefits, current technologies, and emerging challenges

Given their multifaceted roles, carotenoids have garnered significant scientific interest, resulting in a comprehensive and intricate body of literature that occasionally presents conflicting findings concerning the proper characterization, quantification, and bioavailability of these compounds. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the pursuit of novel carotenoids remains a crucial endeavor, as their diverse properties, functionalities and potential health benefits make them invaluable natural resources in agri-food and health promotion through the diet. In this framework, particular attention is given to ketocarotenoids, viz., astaxanthin (one of them) stands out for its possible multifunctional role as an antioxidant, anticancer, and antimicrobial agent. It has been widely explored in the market and utilized in different applications such as nutraceuticals, food additives, among others. Adonirubin and adonixanthin can be naturally found in plants and microorganisms. Due to the increasing significance of natural-based products and the remarkable opportunity to introduce these ketocarotenoids to the market, this review aims to provide an expert overview of the pros and cons associated with adonirubin and adonixanthin.

Metabolic engineering and fermentation of microorganisms for carotenoids production

Carotenoids are natural pigments that exhibit a wide range of red, orange, and yellow colors and are extensively used in the food, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, and aquaculture industries. While advances in systems metabolic engineering have established a foundation for constructing carotenoid-producing microbial cell factories at a laboratory scale, translating these technologies to industrial scales remains a big challenge. Moreover, there is a need to devise cost-effective methods for downstream processing and purification of carotenoids. In this review, we discuss recent strategies in metabolic engineering, such as metabolic flux optimization, enzyme assembly, and storage capacity engineering, aimed at constructing high-performance carotenoid-producing microbial strains. We also review recent approaches for cost-effective downstream processing and purification of carotenoids.

De Novo Synthesis of Dihydro-β-ionone through Metabolic Engineering and Bacterium-Yeast Coculture

Dihydro-β-ionone is a common type of ionone used in the flavor and fragrance industries because of its characteristic scent. The production of flavors in microbial cell factories offers a sustainable and environmentally friendly approach to accessing them, independent of extraction from natural sources. However, the native pathway of dihydro-β-ionone remains unclear, hindering heterologous biosynthesis in microbial hosts. Herein, we devised a microbial platform for de novo syntheses of dihydro-β-ionone from a simple carbon source with glycerol. The complete dihydro-β-ionone pathway was reconstructed in Escherichia coli with multiple metabolic engineering strategies to generate a strain capable of producing 8 mg/L of dihydro-β-ionone, although this was accompanied by a surplus precursor β-ionone in culture. To overcome this issue, Saccharomyces cerevisiae was identified as having a conversion rate for transforming β-ionone to dihydro-β-ionone that was higher than that of E. coli via whole-cell catalysis. Consequently, the titer of dihydro-β-ionone was increased using the E. coli-S. cerevisiae coculture to 27 mg/L. Our study offers an efficient platform for biobased dihydro-β-ionone production and extends coculture engineering to overproducing target molecules in extended metabolic pathways.

Carotenoid Cleavage Dioxygenase 1 and Its Application for the Production of C13-Apocarotenoids in Microbial Cell Factories: A Review

C13-apocarotenoids are naturally derived from the C9-C10 (C9'-C10') double-bond cleavage of carotenoids by carotenoid cleavage dioxygenases (CCDs). As high-value flavors and fragrances in the food and cosmetic industries, the sustainable production of C13-apocarotenoids is emerging in microbial cell factories by the carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase 1 (CCD1) subfamily. However, the commercialization of microbial-based C13-apocarotenoids is still limited by the poor performance of CCD1, which severely constrains its conversion efficiency from precursor carotenoids. This review focuses on the classification of CCDs and their cleavage modes for carotenoids to generate corresponding apocarotenoids. We then emphatically discuss the advances for C13-apocarotenoid biosynthesis in microbial cell factories with various strategies, including optimization of CCD1 expression, improvement of CCD1's catalytic activity and substrate specificity, strengthening of substrate channeling, and development of oleaginous microbial hosts, which have been verified to increase the conversion rate from carotenoids. Lastly, the current challenges and future directions will be discussed to enhance CCDs' application for C13-apocarotenoids biomanufacturing.

Advances in the Discovery and Engineering of Gene Targets for Carotenoid Biosynthesis in Recombinant Strains

Carotenoids are naturally occurring pigments that are abundant in the natural world. Due to their excellent antioxidant attributes, carotenoids are widely utilized in various industries, including the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic industries, and others. Plants, algae, and microorganisms are presently the main sources for acquiring natural carotenoids. However, due to the swift progress in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, along with the continuous and thorough investigation of carotenoid biosynthetic pathways, recombinant strains have emerged as promising candidates to produce carotenoids. The identification and manipulation of gene targets that influence the accumulation of the desired products is a crucial challenge in the construction and metabolic regulation of recombinant strains. In this review, we provide an overview of the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway, followed by a summary of the methodologies employed in the discovery of gene targets associated with carotenoid production. Furthermore, we focus on discussing the gene targets that have shown potential to enhance carotenoid production. To facilitate future research, we categorize these gene targets based on their capacity to attain elevated levels of carotenoid production.

Golden Standard: a complete standard, portable, and interoperative MoClo tool for model and non-model proteobacteria

Modular cloning has become a benchmark technology in synthetic biology. However, a notable disparity exists between its remarkable development and the need for standardization to facilitate seamless interoperability among systems. The field is thus impeded by an overwhelming proliferation of organism-specific systems that frequently lack compatibility. To overcome these issues, we present Golden Standard (GS), a Type IIS assembly method underpinned by the Standard European Vector Architecture. GS unlocks modular cloning applications for most bacteria, and delivers combinatorial multi-part assembly to create genetic circuits of up to twenty transcription units (TUs). Reliance on MoClo syntax renders GS fully compatible with many existing tools and it sets the path towards efficient reusability of available part libraries and assembled TUs. GS was validated in terms of DNA assembly, portability, interoperability and phenotype engineering in α-, β-, γ- and δ-proteobacteria. Furthermore, we provide a computational pipeline for parts characterization that was used to assess the performance of GS parts. To promote community-driven development of GS, we provide a dedicated web-portal including a repository of parts, vectors, and Wizard and Setup tools that guide users in designing constructs. Overall, GS establishes an open, standardized framework propelling the progress of synthetic biology as a whole.

Engineering Chlorophyll, Bacteriochlorophyll, and Carotenoid Biosynthetic Pathways in Escherichia coli

The biosynthesis of chlorophylls (Chls) and bacteriochlorophylls (BChls) represents a key aspect of photosynthesis research. Our previous work assembled the complete pathway for the synthesis of Chl a in Escherichia coli; here we engineer the more complex BChl a pathway in the same heterotrophic host. Coexpression of 18 genes enabled E. coli to produce BChl a, verifying that we have identified the minimum set of genes for the BChl a biosynthesis pathway. The protochlorophyllide reduction step was mediated by the bchNBL genes, and this same module was used to modify the Chl a pathway previously constructed in E. coli, eliminating the need for the light-dependent protochlorophyllide reductase. Furthermore, we demonstrate the feasibility of synthesizing more than one family of photosynthetic pigments in one host by engineering E. coli strains that accumulate the carotenoids neurosporene and β-carotene in addition to BChl a.

Concomitant Production of Erythritol and β-Carotene by Engineered Yarrowia lipolytica

While the expansion of the erythritol production industry has resulted in unprecedented production of yeast cells, it also suffers from a lack of effective utilization. β-Carotene is a value-added compound that can be synthesized by engineered Yarrowia lipolytica. Here, we first evaluated the production performance of erythritol-producing yeast strains under two different morphologies and then successfully constructed a chassis with yeast-like morphology by deleting Mhy1 and Cla4 genes. Subsequently, β-carotene synthesis pathway genes, CarRA and CarB from Blakeslea trispora, were introduced to construct the β-carotene and erythritol coproducing Y. lipolytica strain ylmcc. The rate-limiting genes GGS1 and tHMG1 were overexpressed to increase the β-carotene yield by 45.32-fold compared with the strain ylmcc. However, increased β-carotene accumulation led to prolonged fermentation time; therefore, transporter engineering through overexpression of YTH1 and YTH3 genes was used to alleviate fermentation delays. Using batch fermentation in a 3 L bioreactor, this engineered Y. lipolytica strain produced erythritol with production, yield, and productivity values of 171 g/L, 0.56 g/g glucose, and 2.38 g/(L·h), respectively, with a concomitant β-carotene yield of 47.36 ± 0.06 mg/g DCW. The approach presented here improves the value of erythritol-producing cells and offers a low-cost technique to obtain hydrophobic terpenoids.

Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for high-level production of violaxanthin

BACKGROUND

Xanthophylls are a large class of carotenoids that are found in a variety of organisms and play particularly important roles in the light-harvesting and photoprotection processes of plants and algae. Violaxanthin is an important plant-derived xanthophyll with wide potential applications in medicines, foods, and cosmetics because of its antioxidant activity and bright yellow color. To date, however, violaxanthins have not been produced using metabolically engineered microbes on a commercial scale. Metabolic engineering for microbial production of violaxanthin is hindered by inefficient synthesis pathway in the heterologous host. We systematically optimized the carotenoid chassis and improved the functional expression of key enzymes of violaxanthin biosynthesis in Escherichia coli.

RESULTS

Co-overexpression of crtY (encoding lycopene β-cyclase), crtZ (encoding β-carotene 3-hydroxylase), and ZEP (encoding zeaxanthin epoxidase) had a notable impact on their functions, resulting in the accumulation of intermediate products, specifically lycopene and β-carotene. A chassis strain that did not accumulate the intermediate was optimized by several approaches. A promoter library was used to optimize the expression of crtY and crtZ. The resulting strain DZ12 produced zeaxanthin without intermediates. The expression of ZEP was further systematically optimized by using DZ12 as the chassis host. By using a low copy number plasmid and a modified dithiol/disulfide system, and by co-expressing a full electron transport chain, we generated a strain producing violaxanthin at about 25.28 ± 3.94 mg/g dry cell weight with decreased byproduct accumulation.

CONCLUSION

We developed an efficient metabolically engineered Escherichia coli strain capable of producing a large amount of violaxanthin. This is the first report of a metabolically engineered microbial platform that could be used for the commercial production of violaxanthin.

Industrially Important Fungal Carotenoids: Advancements in Biotechnological Production and Extraction

Carotenoids are lipid-soluble compounds that are present in nature, including plants and microorganisms such as fungi, certain bacteria, and algae. In fungi, they are widely present in almost all taxonomic classifications. Fungal carotenoids have gained special attention due to their biochemistry and the genetics of their synthetic pathway. The antioxidant potential of carotenoids may help fungi survive longer in their natural environment. Carotenoids may be produced in greater quantities using biotechnological methods than by chemical synthesis or plant extraction. The initial focus of this review is on industrially important carotenoids in the most advanced fungal and yeast strains, with a brief description of their taxonomic classification. Biotechnology has long been regarded as the most suitable alternative way of producing natural pigment from microbes due to their immense capacity to accumulate these pigments. So, this review mainly presents the recent progress in the genetic modification of native and non-native producers to modify the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway for enhanced carotenoid production, as well as factors affecting carotenoid biosynthesis in fungal strains and yeast, and proposes various extraction methods to obtain high yields of carotenoids in an attempt to find suitable greener extraction methods. Finally, a brief description of the challenges regarding the commercialization of these fungal carotenoids and the solution is also given.

Metabolic Engineering of Model Microorganisms for the Production of Xanthophyll

Xanthophyll is an oxidated version of carotenoid. It presents significant value to the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries due to its specific antioxidant activity and variety of colors. Chemical processing and conventional extraction from natural organisms are still the main sources of xanthophyll. However, the current industrial production model can no longer meet the demand for human health care, reducing petrochemical energy consumption and green sustainable development. With the swift development of genetic metabolic engineering, xanthophyll synthesis by the metabolic engineering of model microorganisms shows great application potential. At present, compared to carotenes such as lycopene and β-carotene, xanthophyll has a relatively low production in engineering microorganisms due to its stronger inherent antioxidation, relatively high polarity, and longer metabolic pathway. This review comprehensively summarized the progress in xanthophyll synthesis by the metabolic engineering of model microorganisms, described strategies to improve xanthophyll production in detail, and proposed the current challenges and future efforts needed to build commercialized xanthophyll-producing microorganisms.

Simultaneous Production of Cellulase and β-Carotene in the Filamentous Fungus Trichoderma reesei

β-Carotene is an indispensable additive in beverage, cosmetic, feed, and pharmaceutical production. The fermentation industry annually generates abundant waste mycelia from Trichoderma reesei (T. reesei), a pivotal industrial strain for cellulase and heterologous protein production. In this study, we constructed a T. reesei cell factory for β-carotene production for the first time. Four key enzymes, CarRP, CarB, GGS1/CrtE, and HMG1, were overexpressed in T. reesei. The concentrations of medium components, including tryptone and glucose, were optimized. The modified strain accumulated β-carotene at a titer of 218.8 mg/L in flask culture. We achieved cellulase production (FPase, 22.33 IU/mL) with the concomitant production of β-carotene (286.63 mg/L) from T. reesei in a jar. Overall, this study offers a novel and unique approach to address the costly waste mycelium management process using T. reesei industrial strains that simultaneously produce proteins and carotenoids.

Carotenoids and Their Health Benefits as Derived via Their Interactions with Gut Microbiota

Carotenoids have been related to a number of health benefits. Their dietary intake and circulating levels have been associated with a reduced incidence of obesity, diabetes, certain types of cancer, and even lower total mortality. Their potential interaction with the gut microbiota (GM) has been generally overlooked but may be of relevance, as carotenoids largely bypass absorption in the small intestine and are passed on to the colon, where they appear to be in part degraded into unknown metabolites. These may include apo-carotenoids that may have biological effects because of higher aqueous solubility and higher electrophilicity that could better target transcription factors, i.e., NF-κB, PPARγ, and RAR/RXRs. If absorbed in the colon, they could have both local and systemic effects. Certain microbes that may be supplemented were also reported to produce carotenoids in the colon. Although some bactericidal aspects of carotenoids have been shown in vitro, a few studies have also demonstrated a prebiotic-like effect, resulting in bacterial shifts with health-associated properties. Also, stimulation of IgA could play a role in this respect. Carotenoids may further contribute to mucosal and gut barrier health, such as stabilizing tight junctions. This review highlights potential gut-related health-beneficial effects of carotenoids and emphasizes the current research gaps regarding carotenoid-GM interactions.

Advances in the synthesis of three typical tetraterpenoids including β-carotene, lycopene and astaxanthin

Carotenoids are natural pigments that widely exist in nature. Due to their excellent antioxidant, anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties, carotenoids are commonly used in food, medicine, cosmetic and other fields. At present, natural carotenoids are mainly extracted from plants, algae and microorganisms. With the rapid development of metabolic engineering and molecular biology as well as the continuous in-depth study of carotenoids synthesis pathways, industrial microorganisms have showed promising applications in the synthesis of carotenoids. In this review, we introduced the properties of several carotenoids and their biosynthetic metabolism process. Then, the microorganisms synthesizing carotenoids through the natural and non-natural pathways and the extraction methods of carotenoids were summarized and compared. Meanwhile, the influence of substrates on the carotenoids production was also listed. The methods and strategies for achieving high carotenoid production are categorized to help with future research.

PASIV: A Pooled Approach-Based Workflow to Overcome Toxicity-Induced Design of Experiments Failures and Inefficiencies

We present here a newly developed workflow—which we have called PASIV—designed to provide a solution to a practical problem with design of experiments (DoE) methodology: i.e., what can be done if the scoping phase of the DoE cycle is severely hampered by burden and toxicity issues (caused by either the metabolite or an intermediary), making it unreliable or impossible to proceed to the screening phase? PASIV—standing for pooled approach, screening, identification, and visualization—was designed so the (viable) region of interest can be made to appear through an interplay between biology and software. This was achieved by combining multiplex construction in a pooled approach (one-pot reaction) with a viability assay and with a range of bioinformatics tools (including a novel construct matching tool). PASIV was tested on the exemplar of the lycopene pathway—under stressful constitutive expression—yielding a region of interest with comparatively stronger producers.

Bacterial Carotenoids: Extraction, Characterization, and Applications

Natural carotenoids are secondary metabolites that exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties. These types of compounds are highly demanded by pharmaceutical, cosmetic, nutraceutical, and food industries, leading to the search for new natural sources of carotenoids. In recent years, the production of carotenoids from bacteria has become of great interest for industrial applications. In addition to carotenoids with C40-skeletons, some bacteria have the ability to synthesize characteristic carotenoids with C30-skeletons. In this regard, a great variety of methodologies for the extraction and identification of bacterial carotenoids has been reported and this is the first review that condenses most of this information. To understand the diversity of carotenoids from bacteria, we present their biosynthetic origin in order to focus on the methodologies employed in their extraction and characterization. Special emphasis has been made on high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) for the analysis and identification of bacterial carotenoids. We end up this review showing their potential commercial use. This review is proposed as a guide for the identification of these metabolites, which are frequently reported in new bacteria strains.

Carotenoids from fungi and microalgae: A review on their recent production, extraction, and developments

The demand for carotenoids from natural sources obtained by biological extraction methods is increasing with the development of biotechnology and the continued awareness of food safety. Natural plant-derived carotenoids have a relatively high production cost and are affected by the season, while microbial-derived carotenoids are favored due to their natural, high-efficiency, low production cost, and ease of industrialization. This article reviewed the following aspects of natural carotenoids derived from microorganisms: (1) the structures and properties of main carotenoids; (2) fungal and microalgal sources of the main carotenoids; (3) influencing factors and modes of improvement for carotenoids production; (4) efficient extraction methods for carotenoids; and (5) the commercial value of carotenoids. This review provided a reference and guidance for the development of natural carotenoids derived from microorganisms.

Optimization of Carotenoids Production from Camelina sativa Meal Hydrolysate by Rhodosporidium toruloides

Several compounds on the market derive from petrochemical synthesis, and carotenoids are no exception. Nonetheless, since their applications in the food, feed and cosmetic sectors, and because of sustainability issues, carotenoids of natural origin are desirable. Carotenoids can be extracted from several plants but also from carotenogenic microorganisms, among which are yeasts. Nonetheless, to meet sustainability criteria, the substrate used for yeast cultivation has to be formulated from residual biomasses. For these reasons, we deploy the yeast, Rhodosporidium toruloides, to obtain carotenoids from Camelina sativa meal, an underrated lignocellulosic biomass. Its enzymatic hydrolysis ensures the release of the sugars, as well as of the other nutrients necessary to sustain the process. We therefore separately optimized enzymatic and biomass loadings, and calculated the yields and productivities of the obtained carotenoids. The best conditions (9% w/v biomass, 0.56% w/wbiomass enzymes) were tested in different settings, in which the fermentation was performed separately or simultaneously with hydrolysis, resulting in a similar production of carotenoids. In order to collect quantitative data under controlled chemo-physical parameters, the process was implemented in stirred-tank bioreactors, obtaining 3.6 ± 0.69 mg/L of carotenoids; despite the volumetric and geometric change, the outcomes were consistent with results from the fermentation of shake flasks. Therefore, these data pave the way to evaluate a potential future industrialization of this bioprocess, considering the opportunity to optimize the use of different amounts of biomass and enzyme loading, as well as the robustness of the process in the bioreactor.

Production of Rainbow Colorants by Metabolically Engineered Escherichia coli

There has been much interest in producing natural colorants to replace synthetic colorants of health concerns. Escherichia coli has been employed to produce natural colorants including carotenoids, indigo, anthocyanins, and violacein. However, production of natural green and navy colorants has not been reported. Many natural products are hydrophobic, which are accumulated inside or on the cell membrane. This causes cell growth limitation and consequently reduces production of target chemicals. Here, integrated membrane engineering strategies are reported for the enhanced production of rainbow colorants-three carotenoids and four violacein derivatives-as representative hydrophobic natural products in E. coli. By integration of systems metabolic engineering, cell morphology engineering, inner- and outer-membrane vesicle formation, and fermentation optimization, production of rainbow colorants are significantly enhanced to 322 mg L-1 of astaxanthin (red), 343 mg L-1 of β-carotene (orange), 218 mg L-1 of zeaxanthin (yellow), 1.42 g L-1 of proviolacein (green), 0.844 g L-1 of prodeoxyviolacein (blue), 6.19 g L-1 of violacein (navy), and 11.26 g L-1 of deoxyviolacein (purple). The membrane engineering strategies reported here are generally applicable to microbial production of a broader range of hydrophobic natural products, contributing to food, cosmetic, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries.

Identification of a novel metabolic engineering target for carotenoid production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae via ethanol-induced adaptive laboratory evolution

Carotenoids are a large family of health-beneficial compounds that have been widely used in the food and nutraceutical industries. There have been extensive studies to engineer Saccharomyces cerevisiae for the production of carotenoids, which already gained high level. However, it was difficult to discover new targets that were relevant to the accumulation of carotenoids. Herein, a new, ethanol-induced adaptive laboratory evolution was applied to boost carotenoid accumulation in a carotenoid producer BL03-D-4, subsequently, an evolved strain M3 was obtained with a 5.1-fold increase in carotenoid yield. Through whole-genome resequencing and reverse engineering, loss-of-function mutation of phosphofructokinase 1 (PFK1) was revealed as the major cause of increased carotenoid yield. Transcriptome analysis was conducted to reveal the potential mechanisms for improved yield, and strengthening of gluconeogenesis and downregulation of cell wall-related genes were observed in M3. This study provided a classic case where the appropriate selective pressure could be employed to improve carotenoid yield using adaptive evolution and elucidated the causal mutation of evolved strain.

Capsanthin Production in Escherichia coli by Overexpression of Capsanthin/Capsorubin Synthase from Capsicum annuum

Capsanthin, a characteristic red carotenoid found in the fruits of red pepper (Capsicum annuum), is widely consumed as a food and a functional coloring additive. An enzyme catalyzing capsanthin synthesis was identified as capsanthin/capsorubin synthase (CCS) in the 1990s, but no microbial production of capsanthin has been reported. We report here the first successful attempt to biosynthesize capsanthin in Escherichia coli by carotenoid-pathway engineering. Our initial attempt to coexpress eight enzyme genes required for capsanthin biosynthesis did not detect the desired product. The dual activity of CCS as a lycopene β-cyclase as well as a capsanthin/capsorubin synthase likely complicated the task. We demonstrated that a particularly high expression level of the CCS gene and the minimization of byproducts by regulating the seven upstream carotenogenic genes were crucial for capsanthin formation in E. coli. Our results provide a platform for further study of CCS activity and capsanthin production in microorganisms.

New aspects of microbial vitamin K2 production by expanding the product spectrum

Vitamin K2 (menaquinone, MK) is an essential lipid-soluble vitamin with critical roles in blood coagulation and bone metabolism. Chemically, the term vitamin K2 encompasses a group of small molecules that contain a common naphthoquinone head group and a polyisoprenyl side chain of variable length. Among them, menaquinone-7 (MK-7) is the most potent form. Here, the biosynthetic pathways of vitamin K2 and different types of MK produced by microorganisms are briefly introduced. Further, we provide a new aspect of MK-7 production, which shares a common naphthoquinone ring and polyisoprene biosynthesis pathway, by analyzing strategies for expanding the product spectrum. We review the findings of metabolic engineering strategies targeting the shikimate pathway, polyisoprene pathway, and menaquinone pathway, as well as membrane engineering, which provide comprehensive insights for enhancing the yield of MK-7. Finally, the current limitations and perspectives of microbial menaquinone production are also discussed. This article provides in-depth information on metabolic engineering strategies for vitamin K2 production by expanding the product spectrum.

Carotenoids and Some Other Pigments from Fungi and Yeasts

Carotenoids are an essential group of compounds that may be obtained by microbiological synthesis. They are instrumental in various areas of industry, medicine, agriculture, and ecology. The increase of carotenoids' demand at the global market is now essential. At the moment, the production of natural carotenoids is more expensive than obtaining their synthetic forms, but several new approaches/directions on how to decrease this difference were developed during the last decades. This review briefly describes the information accumulated until now about the beneficial effects of carotenoids on human health protection, their possible application in the treatments of various diseases, and their use in the food and feed industry. This review also describes some issues that are linked with biotechnological production of fungal and yeasts carotenoids, as well as new approaches/directions to make their biotechnological production more efficient.

Engineering Photosynthetic Bioprocesses for Sustainable Chemical Production: A Review

Microbial production of chemicals using renewable feedstocks such as glucose has emerged as a green alternative to conventional chemical production processes that rely primarily on petroleum-based feedstocks. The carbon footprint of such processes can further be reduced by using engineered cells that harness solar energy to consume feedstocks traditionally considered to be wastes as their carbon sources. Photosynthetic bacteria utilize sophisticated photosystems to capture the energy from photons to generate reduction potential with such rapidity and abundance that cells often cannot use it fast enough and much of it is lost as heat and light. Engineering photosynthetic organisms could enable us to take advantage of this energy surplus by redirecting it toward the synthesis of commercially important products such as biofuels, bioplastics, commodity chemicals, and terpenoids. In this work, we review photosynthetic pathways in aerobic and anaerobic bacteria to better understand how these organisms have naturally evolved to harness solar energy. We also discuss more recent attempts at engineering both the photosystems and downstream reactions that transfer reducing power to improve target chemical production. Further, we discuss different methods for the optimization of photosynthetic bioprocess including the immobilization of cells and the optimization of light delivery. We anticipate this review will serve as an important resource for future efforts to engineer and harness photosynthetic bacteria for chemical production.

Transcriptome Analysis Reveals a Promotion of Carotenoid Production by Copper Ions in Recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae

We previously constructed a Saccharomyces cerevisiae carotenoid producer BL03-D-4 which produced much more carotenoid in YPM (modified YPD) media than YPD media. In this study, the impacts of nutritional components on carotenoid accumulation of BL03-D-4 were investigated. When using YPM media, the carotenoid yield was increased 10-fold compared to using the YPD media. To elucidate the hidden mechanism, a transcriptome analysis was performed and showed that 464 genes changed significantly in YPM media. Furthermore, inspired by the differential gene expression analysis which indicated that ADY2, HES1, and CUP1 showed the most remarkable changes, we found that the improvement of carotenoid accumulation in YPM media was mainly due to the copper ions, since supplementation of 0.08 mM CuSO₄ in YPD media could increase carotenoid yield 9.2-fold. Reverse engineering of target genes was performed and carotenoid yield could be increased 6.4-fold in YPD media through overexpression of ACE1. The present study revealed for the first time the prominent promotion of carotenoid yield by copper ions in engineered S. cerevisiae and provided a new target ACE1 for genetic engineering of S. cerevisiae for the bioproduction of carotenoids.

Metabolic Engineering of Extremophilic Bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans for the Production of the Novel Carotenoid Deinoxanthin

Deinoxanthin, a xanthophyll derived from Deinococcus species, is a unique organic compound that provides greater antioxidant effects compared to other carotenoids due to its superior scavenging activity against singlet oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. Therefore, it has attracted significant attention as a next-generation organic compound that has great potential as a natural ingredient in a food supplements. Although the microbial identification of deinoxanthin has been identified, mass production has not yet been achieved. Here, we report, for the first time, the development of an engineered extremophilic microorganism, Deinococcus radiodurans strain R1, that is capable of producing deinoxanthin through rational metabolic engineering and process optimization. The genes crtB and dxs were first introduced into the genome to reinforce the metabolic flux towards deinoxanthin. The optimal temperature was then identified through a comparative analysis of the mRNA expression of the two genes, while the carbon source was further optimized to increase deinoxanthin production. The final engineered D. radiodurans strain R1 was able to produce 394 ± 17.6 mg/L (102 ± 11.1 mg/g DCW) of deinoxanthin with a yield of 40.4 ± 1.2 mg/g sucrose and a productivity of 8.4 ± 0.2 mg/L/h from 10 g/L of sucrose. The final engineered strain and the strategies developed in the present study can act as the foundation for the industrial application of extremophilic microorganisms.

Metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for production of β-carotene from hydrophobic substrates

β-Carotene is a yellow–orange–red pigment used in food, cosmetics and pharmacy. There is no commercial yeast-based process for β-carotene manufacturing. In this work, we engineered the baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae by expression of lipases and carotenogenic genes to enable the production of β-carotene on hydrophobic substrates. First, the extracellular lipase (LIP2) and two cell-bound lipases (LIP7 and LIP8) from oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica were expressed either individually or in combination in S. cerevisiae. The engineered strains could grow on olive oil and triolein as the sole carbon source. The strain expressing all three lipases had ∼40% lipid content per dry weight. Next, we integrated the genes encoding β-carotene biosynthetic pathway, crtI, crtYB and crtE from Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous. The resulting engineered strain bearing the lipases and carotenogenic genes reached a titer of 477.9 mg/L β-carotene in yeast peptone dextrose (YPD) medium supplemented with 1% (v/v) olive oil, which was 12-fold higher than an analogous strain without lipases. The highest β-carotene content of 46.5 mg/g DCW was obtained in yeast nitrogen base (YNB) medium supplemented with 1% (v/v) olive oil. The study demonstrates the potential of applying lipases and hydrophobic substrate supplementation for the production of carotenoids in S. cerevisiae.

Archaea Biotechnology

Archaea are a domain of prokaryotic organisms with intriguing physiological characteristics and ecological importance. In Microbial Biotechnology, archaea are historically overshadowed by bacteria and eukaryotes in terms of public awareness, industrial application, and scientific studies, although their biochemical and physiological properties show a vast potential for a wide range of biotechnological applications. Today, the majority of microbial cell factories utilized for the production of value-added and high value compounds on an industrial scale are bacterial, fungal or algae based. Nevertheless, archaea are becoming ever more relevant for biotechnology as their cultivation and genetic systems improve. Some of the main advantages of archaeal cell factories are the ability to cultivate many of these often extremophilic organisms under non-sterile conditions, and to utilize inexpensive feedstocks often toxic to other microorganisms, thus drastically reducing cultivation costs. Currently, the only commercially available products of archaeal cell factories are bacterioruberin, squalene, bacteriorhodopsin and diether-/tetraether-lipids, all of which are produced utilizing halophiles. Other archaeal products, such as carotenoids and biohydrogen, as well as polyhydroxyalkanoates and methane are in early to advanced development stages, respectively. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the current state of Archaea Biotechnology by describing the actual state of research and development as well as the industrial utilization of archaeal cell factories, their role and their potential in the future of sustainable bioprocessing, and to illustrate their physiological and biotechnological potential.

Regulatory molecule cAMP changes cell fitness of the engineered Escherichia coli for terpenoids production

Terpenoids are a class of natural compounds with many important functions and applications. They are synthesized from a long synthetic pathway of isoprenyl unit coupling with the myriads of terpene synthases. Owing to the catalytic divergence of terpenoids synthesis, microbial production of terpenoids is compromised to the complexity of pathway engineering and suffers from the metabolic engineering burden. In this work, the adaptive Escherichia coli HP variant exhibited a general cell fitness in terpenoid synthesis. Especially, it could yield taxadiene of 193.2 mg/L in a test tube culture, which is a five-fold increase over the production in the wild type E. coli DH5α. Mutational analyses indicated that IS10 insertion in adenylate cyclase CyaA (CyaA_HP) resulted in lowering intracellular cyclic AMP (cAMP), which could regulate its receptor protein CRP to rewire cell metabolism and contributed to the improved cell fitness. Our results suggested a way to manipulate cell fitness for terpenoids production and other products.

Biotechnological production of lycopene by microorganisms

Lycopene is a dark red carotenoid belonging to C40 terpenoids and is widely found in a variety of plants, especially ripe red fruits and vegetables. Lycopene has been shown to reduce the risk of prostate cancer, other cancers, and cardiovascular disease. It is one of the most widely used carotenoids in the healthcare product market. Currently, commercially available lycopene is mainly extracted from tomatoes. However, production of lycopene from plants is costly and environmentally unfriendly. To date, there have been many reports on the biosynthesis of lycopene by microorganisms, providing another route for lycopene production. This review discusses the lycopene biosynthetic pathway and natural and engineered lycopene-accumulating microorganisms, as well as their production of lycopene. The effects of different metabolic engineering strategies on lycopene accumulation are also considered. Furthermore, this work presents perspectives concerning the microbial production of lycopene, especially trends to construct microbial cell factories for lycopene production. KEY POINTS: • Recent achievements in the lycopene biosynthesis in microorganisms. • Review of lycopene biosynthetic metabolism engineering strategy. • Discuss the current challenges and prospects of using microorganisms to produce lycopene.

In vivo creation of plasmid pCRT01 and its use for the construction of carotenoid-producing Paracoccus spp. strains that grow efficiently on industrial wastes

Background

Carotenoids are natural tetraterpene pigments widely utilized in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Currently, chemical synthesis of these compounds outperforms their production in Escherichia coli or yeast due to the limited efficiency of the latter. The use of natural microbial carotenoid producers, such as bacteria of the genus Paracoccus (Alphaproteobacteria), may help to optimize this process. In order to couple the ability to synthesize these pigments with the metabolic versatility of this genus, we explored the possibility of introducing carotenoid synthesis genes into strains capable of efficient growth on simple low-cost media.

Results

We constructed two carotenoid-producing strains of Paracoccus carrying a new plasmid, pCRT01, which contains the carotenoid synthesis gene locus crt from Paracoccus marcusii OS22. The plasmid was created in vivo via illegitimate recombination between crt-carrying vector pABW1 and a natural “paracoccal” plasmid pAMI2. Consequently, the obtained fusion replicon is stably maintained in the bacterial population without the need for antibiotic selection. The introduction of pCRT01 into fast-growing “colorless” strains of Paracoccus aminophilus and Paracoccus kondratievae converted them into efficient producers of a range of both carotenes and xanthophylls. The exact profile of the produced pigments was dependent on the strain genetic background. To reduce the cost of carotenoid production in this system, we tested the growth and pigment synthesis efficiency of the two strains on various simple media, including raw industrial effluent (coal-fired power plant flue gas desulfurization wastewater) supplemented with molasses, an industrial by-product rich in sucrose.

Conclusions

We demonstrated a new approach for the construction of carotenoid-producing bacterial strains which relies on a single plasmid-mediated transfer of a pigment synthesis gene locus between Paracoccus strains. This strategy facilitates screening for producer strains in terms of synthesis efficiency, pigment profile and ability to grow on low-cost industrial waste-based media, which should increase the cost-effectiveness of microbial production of carotenoids.

Metabolic Engineering Escherichia coli for the Production of Lycopene

Lycopene, a potent antioxidant, has been widely used in the fields of pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and cosmetics. However, the production of lycopene extracted from natural sources is far from meeting the demand. Consequently, synthetic biology and metabolic engineering have been employed to develop microbial cell factories for lycopene production. Due to the advantages of rapid growth, complete genetic background, and a reliable genetic operation technique, Escherichia coli has become the preferred host cell for microbial biochemicals production. In this review, the recent advances in biological lycopene production using engineered E. coli strains are summarized: First, modification of the endogenous MEP pathway and introduction of the heterogeneous MVA pathway for lycopene production are outlined. Second, the common challenges and strategies for lycopene biosynthesis are also presented, such as the optimization of other metabolic pathways, modulation of regulatory networks, and optimization of auxiliary carbon sources and the fermentation process. Finally, the future prospects for the improvement of lycopene biosynthesis are also discussed.

Construction of a Stable and Temperature-Responsive Yeast Cell Factory for Crocetin Biosynthesis Using CRISPR-Cas9

Crocetin is a plant natural product with broad medicinal applications, such as improvement of sleep quality and attenuation of physical fatigue. However, crocetin production using microbial cell factories is still far from satisfaction, probably due to the conflict between cell growth and product accumulation. In the present work, a temperature-responsive crocetin-producing Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain was established to coordinate cell growth, precursor (zeaxanthin) generation, and product (crocetin) biosynthesis. The production of crocetin was further enhanced via increasing the copy numbers of CCD2 and ALDH genes using the CRISPR-Cas9 based multiplex genome integration technology. The final engineered strain TL009 produced crocetin up to 139.67 ± 2.24 μg/g DCW. The advantage of the temperature switch based crocetin production was particularly demonstrated by much higher zeaxanthin conversion yield. This study highlights the potential of the temperature-responsive yeast platform strains to increase the production of other valuable carotenoid derivatives.

Enhancing β-Carotene Production in Escherichia coli by Perturbing Central Carbon Metabolism and Improving the NADPH Supply

Beta (β)-carotene (C40H56; a provitamin) is a particularly important carotenoid for human health. Many studies have focused on engineering Escherichia coli as an efficient heterologous producer of β-carotene. Moreover, several strains with potential for use in the industrial production of this provitamin have already been constructed via different metabolic engineering strategies. In this study, we aimed to improve the β-carotene-producing capacity of our previously engineered E. coli strain ZF43ΔgdhA through further gene deletion and metabolic pathway manipulations. Deletion of the zwf gene increased the resultant strain's β-carotene production and content by 5.1 and 32.5%, respectively, relative to the values of strain ZF43ΔgdhA, but decreased the biomass by 26.2%. Deletion of the ptsHIcrr operon further increased the β-carotene production titer from 122.0 to 197.4 mg/L, but the provitamin content was decreased. Subsequently, comparative transcriptomic analysis was used to explore the dynamic transcriptional responses of the strains to the blockade of the pentose phosphate pathway and inactivation of the phosphotransferase system. Lastly, based on the analyses of comparative transcriptome and reduction cofactor, several strategies to increase the NADPH supply were evaluated for enhancement of the β-carotene content. The combination of yjgB gene deletion and nadK overexpression led to increased β-carotene production and content. The best strain, ECW4/p5C-nadK, produced 266.4 mg/L of β-carotene in flask culture and 2,579.1 mg/L in a 5-L bioreactor. The latter value is the highest reported from production via the methylerythritol phosphate pathway in E. coli. Although the strategies applied is routine in this study, the combinations reported were first implemented, are simple but efficient and will be helpful for the production of many other natural products, especially isoprenoids. Importantly, we demonstrated that the use of the methylerythritol phosphate pathway alone for efficient β-carotene biosynthesis could be achieved via appropriate modifications of the cell metabolic functions.

Modular engineering for microbial production of carotenoids

There is an increasing demand for carotenoids due to their applications in the food, flavor, pharmaceutical and feed industries, however, the extraction and synthesis of these compounds can be expensive and technically challenging. Microbial production of carotenoids provides an attractive alternative to the negative environmental impacts and cost of chemical synthesis or direct extraction from plants. Metabolic engineering and synthetic biology approaches have been widely utilized to reconstruct and optimize pathways for carotenoid overproduction in microorganisms. This review summarizes the current advances in microbial engineering for carotenoid production and divides the carotenoid biosynthesis building blocks into four distinct metabolic modules: 1) central carbon metabolism, 2) cofactor metabolism, 3) isoprene supplement metabolism and 4) carotenoid biosynthesis. These four modules focus on redirecting carbon flux and optimizing cofactor supplements for isoprene precursors needed for carotenoid synthesis. Future perspectives are also discussed to provide insights into microbial engineering principles for overproduction of carotenoids.

Homology-dependent recombination of large synthetic pathways into E. coli genome via λ-Red and CRISPR/Cas9 dependent selection methodology

Background

Metabolic engineering frequently needs genomic integration of many heterologous genes for biosynthetic pathway assembly. Despite great progresses in genome editing for the model microorganism Escherichia coli, the integration of large pathway into genome for stabilized chemical production is still challenging compared with small DNA integration.

Results

We have developed a λ-Red assisted homology-dependent recombination for large synthetic pathway integration in E. coli. With this approach, we can integrate as large as 12 kb DNA module into the chromosome of E. coli W3110 in a single step. The efficiency of this method can reach 100%, thus markedly improve the integration efficiency and overcome the limitation of the integration size adopted the common method. Furthermore, the limiting step in the methylerythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway and lycopene synthetic pathway were integrated into the W3110 genome using our system. Subsequently, the yields of the final strain were increased 106 and 4.4-fold compared to the initial strain and the reference strain, respectively.

Conclusions

In addition to pre-existing method, our system presents an optional strategy for avoiding using plasmids and a valuable tool for large synthetic pathway assembly in E. coli.

Analysis of Yarrowia lipolytica growth, catabolism, and terpenoid biosynthesis during utilization of lipid-derived feedstock

This study employs biomass growth analyses and ¹³C-isotope tracing to investigate lipid feedstock utilization by Yarrowia lipolytica. Compared to glucose, oil-feedstock in the minimal medium increases the yeast's biomass yields and cell sizes, but decreases its protein content (<20% of total biomass) and enzyme abundances for product synthesis. Labeling results indicate a segregated metabolic network (the glycolysis vs. the TCA cycle) during co-catabolism of sugars (glucose or glycerol) with fatty acid substrates, which facilitates resource allocations for biosynthesis without catabolite repressions. This study has also examined the performance of a β-carotene producing strain in different growth mediums. Canola oil-containing yeast-peptone (YP) has resulted in the best β-carotene titer (121 ± 13 mg/L), two-fold higher than the glucose based YP medium. These results highlight the potential of Y. lipolytica for the valorization of waste-derived lipid feedstock.

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¹³C tracing was used to track Y. lipolytica metabolism of lipid-based feedstock.

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Y. lipolytica has a segregated flux network for lipid and sugar co-utilizations.

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Lipid feedstock and nitrogen sources affect cell morphology and optical density.

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Lipid feedstock benefits both Y. lipolytica growth and carotenoid biosynthesis.

Heterologous production of the epoxycarotenoid violaxanthin in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Microbial production of carotenoids has mainly focused towards a few products, such as β-carotene, lycopene and astaxanthin. However, other less explored carotenoids, like violaxanthin, have also shown unique properties and promissory applications. Violaxanthin is a plant-derived epoxidated carotenoid with strong antioxidant activity and a key precursor of valuable compounds, such as fucoxanthin and β-damascenone. In this study, we report for the first time the heterologous production of epoxycarotenoids in yeast. We engineered the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae following multi-level strategies for the efficient accumulation of violaxanthin. Starting from a β-carotenogenic yeast strain, we first evaluated the performance of several β-carotene hydroxylases (CrtZ), and zeaxanthin epoxidases (ZEP) from different species, together with their respective N-terminal truncated variants. The combined expression of CrtZ from Pantoea ananatis and truncated ZEP of Haematococcus lacustris showed the best performance and led to a yield of 1.6 mg/g_DCW of violaxanthin. Further improvement of the epoxidase activity was achieved by promoting the transfer of reducing equivalents to ZEP by expressing several redox partner systems. The co-expression of the plant truncated ferredoxin-3, and truncated root ferredoxin oxidoreductase-1 resulted in a 2.2-fold increase in violaxanthin yield (3.2 mg/g_DCW). Finally, increasing gene copy number of carotenogenic genes enabled reaching a final production of 7.3 mg/g_DCW in shake flask cultures and batch bioreactors, which is the highest yield of microbially produced violaxanthin reported to date.

Application of Stable Isotope Tracing to Elucidate Metabolic Dynamics During Yarrowia lipolytica α-Ionone Fermentation

Targeted metabolite analysis in combination with ¹³C-tracing is a convenient strategy to determine pathway activity in biological systems; however, metabolite analysis is limited by challenges in separating and detecting pathway intermediates with current chromatographic methods. Here, a hydrophilic interaction chromatography tandem mass spectrometry approach was developed for improved metabolite separation, isotopologue analysis, and quantification. The physiological responses of a Yarrowia lipolytica strain engineered to produce ∼400 mg/L α-ionone and temporal changes in metabolism were quantified (e.g., mevalonate secretion, then uptake) indicating bottleneck shifts in the engineered pathway over the course of fermentation. Dynamic labeling results indicated limited tricarboxylic acid cycle label incorporation and, combined with a measurable ATP shortage during the high ionone production phase, suggested that electron transport and oxidative phosphorylation may limit energy supply and strain performance. The results provide insights into terpenoid pathway metabolic dynamics of non-model yeasts and offer guidelines for sensor development and modular engineering.

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A HILIC method is demonstrated for efficient separation of 57 cellular metabolites

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Production of α-ionone was ∼400 mg/L in bench-top bioreactors

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Engineered Y. lipolytica secreted then consumed mevalonate during fermentation

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Oxidative phosphorylation may limit performance in high-cell-density fermentations