Rhodotorula Yeasts as Potential Chassis for Sustainable Food Biotechnology

Microbial production offers a promising alternative to traditional food production. Red yeasts, which are characterized by fast growth, robustness, and a broad substrate range, have been explored for the production of value-added products such as lipids, carotenoids, enzymes, and sugar alcohols. Particularly, Rhodotorula spp. are of great interest for the valorization of waste generated during food processing. However, metabolic engineering of red yeasts has been hindered by insufficient multiomics information mining, an inefficient genetic enabling toolbox, and less-understood unique metabolic features. This review provides an overview of red yeasts, including developments in multiomics biology, the creation of cell factories for food ingredient production, advances in the enabling toolbox of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, and the potential of recycling food waste into valuable products. In addition, we also discuss the remaining challenges and prospective future priorities in exploring red yeasts as cell factories.