Efficient production of natural sunscreens shinorine, porphyra-334, and mycosporine-2-glycine in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs) are promising natural sunscreens mainly produced in marine organisms. Until now, metabolic engineering efforts to produce MAAs in heterologous hosts have mainly focused on shinorine production, and the low production levels are still not suitable for industrial applications. In this study, we successfully developed Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains that can efficiently produce various disubstituted MAAs, including shinorine, porphyra-334, and mycosporine-2-glycine (M2G), which are formed by conjugating serine, threonine, and glycine to mycosporine-glycine (MG), respectively. We first generated an MG-producing strain by multiple integration of the biosynthetic genes from cyanobacteria and applying metabolic engineering strategies to increase sedoheptulose-7-phosphate pool, a substrate for MG production. Next, five mysD genes from cyanobacteria, which encode D-Ala-D-Ala ligase homologues that conjugate an amino acid to MG, were introduced into the MG-producing strain to determine the substrate preference of each MysD enzyme. MysDs from Lyngbya sp., Nostoc linckia, and Euhalothece sp. showed high specificity toward serine, threonine, and glycine, resulting in efficient production of shinorine, porphyra-334, and M2G, respectively. This is the first report on the production of porphyra-334 and M2G in S. cerevisiae. Furthermore, we identified that the substrate specificity of MysD was determined by the omega loop region of 43–45 amino acids predicted based on its structural homology to a D-Ala-D-Ala ligase from Thermus thermophilus involved in peptidoglycan biosynthesis. The substrate specificities of two MysD enzymes were interchangeable by swapping the omega loop region. Using the engineered strain expressing mysD from Lyngbya sp. or N. linckia, up to 1.53 g/L shinorine or 1.21 g/L porphyra-334 was produced by fed-batch fermentation in a 5-L bioreactor, the highest titer reported so far. These results suggest that S. cerevisiae is a promising host for industrial production of different types of MAAs, providing a sustainable and eco-friendly alternative for the development of natural sunscreens.