Recent advances in biotechnological production of polyunsaturated fatty acids by Yarrowia lipolytica

Microbes: A Hidden Treasure of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids

“…This development has been accompanied by the creation of novel synthetic biology techniques and gene editing technology for Y. lipolytica . The metabolic engineering of Y. lipolytica has produced different unusual fatty acids, such as ricinoleic acid ( 144 , 145 ). The variety of lipids produced by oleaginous Y. lipolytica is expected to rise in the coming years to cope with the increasing demand.…”

Engineering Yarrowia lipolytica to produce nutritional fatty acids: Current status and future perspectives

“…The anaerobic PKS pathway is another important native microbial pathway for the biosynthesis of PUFAs [ 20 ]. Although the PKS pathway is mostly found in eukaryotic microalgae and marine bacteria, it exhibited great potential for the production of PUFAs in Y. lipolytica , especially DHA and ARA.…”

“…In recent years, different metabolic engineering strategies have been used to synthesize a diverse range of fatty acids in Y. lipolytica [ 15 , 19 , 24 , 36 , 37 ]. The engineering strategies mainly include the overexpression of heterologous synthetic pathways for de novo fatty acid synthesis, improving the precursor supply of acetyl-CoA, inhibition of competing pathways to push the metabolic process, regulation the lipid metabolism-related genes to pull the fatty acids accumulation, inhibition of the β-oxidation pathway to block fatty acids degradation, and some other approaches such as engineering the relevant transcription factors [ 20 , 38 ]. At the same time, optimization of fermentation processes is also considered as an effective measure to increase fatty acid accumulation [ 39 , 40 ].…”

“…DHA is closely associated with nervous system development and has become an important component of infant milk powder [ 82 ]. A patent granted to disclosed the production of by overexpressing 22 copies of eight different genes including heterologous Δ-4, Δ-5, Δ-6, and Δ-7 desaturases, as well as C18–20 and C20-22 elongases, combined with deletions of native acyltransferase and desaturase in Y. lipolytica , but the resulting strain only accumulated 5.6% of TFAs [ 20 ].…”

“…It is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to its non-pathogenic nature [ 18 ]. It also can accumulate over 90% of lipids in its dry cell weight (DCW) and utilize an array of renewable substrates as carbon sources [ 19 , 20 ]. Furthermore, the whole genome sequence of Y. lipolytica has been clearly annotated, greatly expanding the power of mature genetic engineering tools such as DNA assembly techniques, Gateway cloning, Golden gate, CRISPR/Cas9 and so on [ [21] , [22] , [23] ].…”