Basidiomycetous Yeasts for Production of Carotenoids

Abstract

While Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the most widely exploited yeast in biotechnology, it cannot be forgotten that this species represents only a small percentage of blastomycetes biodiversity. Currently, in fact, numerous other species are being utilized or studied for potentially important roles such as many basidiomycetous yeasts. Nevertheless, in spite of their enormous biosynthetic potential, studies regarding their many useful catalytic attributes and products are still primarily confined to the laboratory. The ability of some basidiomycetous yeast to produce and accumulate carotenoids as intracellular pigments is well known. The astaxanthin‐producing species Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous (formerly Phaffia rhodozyma ) is by far the most famous carotenoid‐synthesizing yeast. Although the occurrence of astaxanthin in yeasts appears to be confined to this species, others, belonging to the genera Rhodotorula , Rhodosporidium , Sporobolomyces , and Sporidiobolus , have been shown to produce various important carotenoids such as β‐carotene, γ‐carotene, torulene, and torularhodin.

Rhodotorula portillonensis sp. nov., a basidiomycetous yeast isolated from Antarctic shallow-water marine sediment

“…However, the Antarctic marine ecosystem remains largely unexplored and few studies have investigated the yeasts that inhabit the Antarctic seas. To date, yeasts from the genera Candida, Cryptococcus, Cystofilobasidium, Guehomyces, Leucosporidium, Metschnikowia, Mrakia, Rhodosporidium, Rhodotorula, Sympodiomyces, Sakaguchia and Sporopachydermia have been isolated from seawater, marine sediments, invertebrate organisms and algae, among other Antarctic marine environments (Nagahama, 2006;Kutty & Philip, 2008;Shivaji & Prasad, 2009;Loque et al, 2010;Hua et al, 2010;Song et al, 2010;Buzzini et al, 2012;Vaca et al, 2013). The importance of the study of Antarctic marine yeasts has been pointed by genus-wise distribution studies, which showed that marine yeasts from Antarctic oceans have the least similarity compared with the yeast biodiversity from the other oceans (Kutty & Philip, 2008).…”