De novo biosynthesis of sakuranetin from glucose by engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Sakuranetin is a plant-natural product, which has increasingly been utilized in cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries for its extensive anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, and immunomodulatory effects. Sakuranetin was mostly produced by extraction technology from plants, which is limited to natural conditions and biomass supply. In this study, a de novo biosynthesis pathway of sakuranetin by engineered S. cerevisiae was constructed. After a series of heterogenous gene integration, a biosynthetic pathway of sakuranetin from glucose was successfully constructed in S. cerevisiae whose sakuranetin yield reached only 4.28 mg/L. Then, a multi-module metabolic engineering strategy was applied for improving sakuranetin yield in S. cerevisiae: (1) adjusting the copy number of sakuranetin synthesis genes, (2) removing the rate-limiting factor of aromatic amino acid pathway and optimizing the synthetic pathway of aromatic amino acids to enhance the supply of carbon flux for sakuranetin, and (3) introducing acetyl-CoA carboxylase mutants ACC1S659A,S1157A and knocking out YPL062W to strengthen the supply of malonyl-CoA which is another synthetic precursor of sakuranetin. The resultant mutant S. cerevisiae exhibited a more than tenfold increase of sakuranetin titer (50.62 mg/L) in shaking flasks. Furthermore, the sakuranetin titer increased to 158.65 mg/L in a 1-L bioreactor. To our knowledge, it is the first report on the sakuranetin de novo synthesis from glucose in S. cerevisiae. KEY POINTS: • De novo biosynthesis of sakuranetin was constructed by engineered S. cerevisiae. • Sakuranetin production was enhanced by multi-module metabolic engineering strategy. • It is the first report on the sakuranetin de novo synthesis in S. cerevisiae.