Strategies of metabolic engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce plant-derived D-limonene

Abstract:

Plant terpenoids are the natural secondary metabolites derived from units of isoprene with a molecular formula of C₅H₈ from different types of plants. D-Limonene is recognized as monoterpene and widely used in food and medical industry because of many functions, such as anti-bacteriostasis, aroma enhancement, anti-cancer and anti-cough. At present, the industrial production of D-limonene is generally obtained by extraction from the peel or pulp of plants. However, the extraction of D-limonene from plants suffers from complex separation and purification, low efficiency and high energy consumption. At the beginning of this century, the rise of synthetic biology technology has brought new ideas and tools for the synthesis of natural active compounds, which has broken the boundary between species and has become a reality of synthesis of D-limonene from microbes. It is of great economic and social benefit to construct a targeted and efficient microbial cell factory for the synthesis of D-limonene, and to replace the traditional method of plant extraction with microbial fermentation. We reviewed recent achievements of metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to synthesize terpenoids and elaborated Saccharomyces cerevisiae as microbial chassis, using the method of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology to build high heterologous production of D-limonene synthetic strategies.