Improving the production of punicic acid in baker’s yeast by engineering genes in acyl channeling processes and adjusting precursor supply

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Wang, Juli
  • Xu, Yang
  • Holic, Roman
  • Yu, Xiaochen
  • Singer, Stacy D.
  • Chen, Guanqun

• ABSTRACT
  Punicic acid (PuA) is a high-value edible conjugated fatty acid with strong bioactivities and has important potential applications in nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, feeding and oleochemical industries. Since the production of PuA is severely limited by the fact that its natural source (pomegranate seed oil) is not readily available on a large scale, there is a considerable interest in understanding the biosynthesis and accumulation of this plant-based unusual fatty acid in transgenic microorganisms to support the rational design of biotechnological approaches for PuA production via fermentation. Here we tested the effectiveness of genetic engineering and precursor supply in PuA production in the model yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The results revealed that the combination of precursor feeding and co-expression of selected genes in acyl channeling processes created an effective ‘Push-Pull’ approach to increase PuA content, which could prove valuable in future efforts to produce PuA in industrial yeast and other microorganisms via fermentation.

• Date created

  2021-01-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • punicic acid
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae
  • pomegranate
  • conjugated fatty acid
  • fatty acid desaturase
  • fatty acid conjugase
  • acyl-channeling

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-075s-4755

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International