Recent advances in bioengineering of the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica

The oleaginous yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica, is becoming increasing popular for metabolic engineering applications. Advances in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering have allowed microorganisms such as Y. lipolytica to be tailored for specific chemical production. Significant progress has been made to understand the genetics of Y. lipolytica and towards developing novel genetic engineering tools, leading to accelerated metabolic engineering efforts for a variety of different products. In this review, we discuss recent advances in genetic engineering tools and metabolic engineering achievements specific to Y. lipolytica. Topics covered in this review include genetic manipulation and expression systems, lipid-based products, peroxisome-based products and alternative sugar utilization.