초록
<P><B>Background</B></P><P><I>Yarrowia lipolytica</I>, a non-traditional oil yeast, has been widely used as a platform for lipid production. However, the production of other chemicals such as terpenoids in engineered <I>Y. lipolytica</I> is still low. α-Farnesene, a sesquiterpene, can be used in medicine, bioenergy and other fields, and has very high economic value. Here, we used α-farnesene as an example to explore the potential of <I>Y. lipolytica</I> for terpenoid production.</P><P><B>Results</B></P><P>We constructed libraries of strains overexpressing mevalonate pathway and α-farnesene synthase genes by non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) mediated integration into the <I>Y. lipolytica</I> chromosome. First, a mevalonate overproduction strain was selected by overexpressing relevant genes and changing the cofactor specificity. Based on this strain, the downstream α-farnesene synthesis pathway was overexpressed by iterative integration. Culture conditions were also optimized. A strain that produced 25.55 g/L α-farnesene was obtained. This is the highest terpenoid titer reported in <I>Y. lipolytica</I>.</P><P><B>Conclusions</B></P><P><I>Yarrowia lipolytica</I> is a potentially valuable species for terpenoid production, and NHEJ-mediated modular integration is effective for expression library construction and screening of high-producer strains.</P>