Microbial Production, Extraction, and Quantitative Analysis of Isoprenoids

Isoprenoids, also known as terpenes or terpenoids, are compounds made of one or more isoprene (C5H8) moieties and constitute the largest class of natural products. They play diverse roles in biology and have broad industrial uses as flavors, fragrances, biofuels, polymers, agricultural chemicals, and medicines. Most isoprenoids are secondary plant metabolites and only produced in very low amounts. To make these valuable compounds economically accessible, significant efforts in the culture and engineering of microbial cells for isoprenoid biosynthesis have been made in the last decades. The protocols presented here describe lab-scale cultivation of microbes, either naturally producing or engineered, for isoprenoid production, the extraction of products and their quantification by high-performance liquid chromatography. Examples of isoprenoids covered in this chapter include (C10) mono-, (C15) sesqui-, (C20) di-, (C30) tri-, and (C40) tetraterpenoids. We focus on yeast and cyanobacteria as production systems, but the protocols can be adapted for other organisms.