Application of adaptive laboratory evolution to improve the tolerance of Rhodotorula strain to methanol in crude glycerol and development of an effective method for cell lysis

Abstract Rhodotorula toruloides can utilize crude glycerol as the low‐cost carbon source for lipid production, but its growth is subjected to inhibition by methanol in crude glycerol. Here, transcriptome profiling demonstrated that 1004 genes were significantly regulated in the strain R. toruloides TO2 under methanol stress. Methanol impaired the function of membrane transport and subsequently weakened the utilization of glycerol, activities of the primary metabolism and functions of nucleus and ribosome. Afterwards the tolerance of TO2 to methanol was improved by using two‐round adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE). The final strain M2‐ale had tolerance up to 3.5% of methanol. 1 H NMR‐based metabolome analysis indicated that ALE not only improved the tolerance of M2‐ale to methanol but also tuned the carbon flux towards the biosynthesis of glycerolipid‐related metabolites. The biomass and lipid titer of M2‐ale reached 14.63 ± 0.45 g L −1 and 7.06 ± 0.44 g L −1 at 96 h in the crude glycerol medium, which increased up to 17.69% and 31.39%, respectively, comparing with TO2. Afterwards, an effective method for cell lysis was developed by combining sonication and enzymatic hydrolysis (So‐EnH). The lytic effect of So‐EnH was validated by using confocal imaging and flow cytometry. At last, lipid recovery rate reached 95.4 ± 2.7% at the optimized condition.