초록
<P><B>Abstract</B></P><P>Beta‐carotene is known to exhibit a number of pharmacological and nutraceutical benefits to human health. Metabolic engineering of beta‐carotene biosynthesis in <I>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</I> has been attracting the interest of many researchers. A previous work has shown that <I>S.？cerevisiae</I> successfully integrated with phytoene synthase (<I>crtYB</I>) and phytoene desaturase (<I>crtI</I>) from <I>Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous</I> could produce beta‐carotene. In the present study, we achieved around 200% improvement in beta‐carotene production in <I>S.？cerevisiae</I> through specific site optimization of <I>crtI</I> and <I>crtYB</I>, in which five codons of <I>crtI</I> and eight codons of <I>crtYB</I> were rationally mutated. Furthermore, the effects of the truncated HMG‐CoA reductase (<I>tHMG1</I>) from <I>S.？cerevisiae</I> and HMG‐CoA reductase (<I>mva</I>) from <I>Staphylococcus aureus</I> on the production of beta‐carotene in <I>S.？cerevisiae</I> were also evaluated. Our results indicated that <I>mva</I> from a prokaryotic organism might be more effective than <I>tHMG1</I> for beta‐carotene production in <I>S.？cerevisiae</I>.</P>