Synthetic biology, systems biology, and metabolic engineering of Yarrowia lipolytica toward a sustainable biorefinery platform

Jingbo Ma, Yang Gu, Monireh Marsafari, Peng Xu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

44 Scopus citations

Abstract

Yarrowia lipolytica is an oleaginous yeast that has been substantially engineered for production of oleochemicals and drop-in transportation fuels. The unique acetyl-CoA/malonyl-CoA supply mode along with the versatile carbon-utilization pathways makes this yeast a superior host to upgrade low-value carbons into high-value secondary metabolites and fatty acid-based chemicals. The expanded synthetic biology toolkits enabled us to explore a large portfolio of specialized metabolism beyond fatty acids and lipid-based chemicals. In this review, we will summarize the recent advances in genetic, omics, and computational tool development that enables us to streamline the genetic or genomic modification for Y. lipolytica. We will also summarize various metabolic engineering strategies to harness the endogenous acetyl-CoA/malonyl-CoA/HMG-CoA pathway for production of complex oleochemicals, polyols, terpenes, polyketides, and commodity chemicals. We envision that Y. lipolytica will be an excellent microbial chassis to expand nature’s biosynthetic capacity to produce plant secondary metabolites, industrially relevant oleochemicals, agrochemicals, commodity, and specialty chemicals and empower us to build a sustainable biorefinery platform that contributes to the prosperity of a bio-based economy in the future.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)845-862
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology
Volume47
Issue number9-10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2020
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Biofuel
  • Chemicals
  • Metabolic engineering
  • Natural products
  • Synthetic biology
  • Systems biology
  • Yarrowia lipolytica

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