Metabolic engineering of yeast to produce polyunsaturated fatty acids
Polyunsaturated fatty acids,which play important role in food and medicine and other fields,have gained great attention in recent years. The process for production of polyunsaturated fatty acids by microorganism has its own advantages. Yeast,which has rapid growth and accumulation rate, has become the research spotlight and this work reviews the metabolic engineering of yeast to produce polyunsaturated fatty acids. The biosynthetic pathway of polyunsaturated fatty acids,biochemistry mechanism of lipid accumulation,polyunsaturated fatty acids production through metabolic engineering and the effect of unsaturated fatty acids on yeast tolerance,especially in the model organism ofSaccharomyces cerevisiae and non-conventional yeast ofYarrowia lipolytica,were addressed. Future research should be focused on exploring the mechanism of polyunsaturated fatty acids production with yeast,which would guide metabolic engineering of yeast to produce polyunsaturated fatty acids.