Metabolic Engineering for Efficient Ketocarotenoid Accumulation in the Green Microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Sofia Amendola, Jacob S. Kneip, Florian Meyer, Federico Perozeni, Stefano Cazzaniga, Kyle J. Lauersen, Matteo Ballottari, Thomas Baier

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

Astaxanthin is a valuable ketocarotenoid with various pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications. Green microalgae harbor natural capacities for pigment accumulation due to their 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway. Recently, a redesigned ß-carotene ketolase (BKT) was found to enable ketocarotenoid accumulation in the model microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and transformants exhibited reduced photoinhibition under high-light. Here, a systematic screening by synthetic transgene design of carotenoid pathway enzymes and overexpression from the nuclear genome identified phytoene synthase (PSY/crtB) as a bottleneck for carotenoid accumulation in C. reinhardtii. Increased ß-carotene hydroxylase (CHYB) activity was found to be essential for engineered astaxanthin accumulation. A combined BKT, crtB, and CHYB expression strategy resulted in a volumetric astaxanthin production of 9.5 ± 0.3 mg L–1 (4.5 ± 0.1 mg g–1 CDW) in mixotrophic and 23.5 mg L–1 (1.09 mg L–1 h–1) in high cell density conditions, a 4-fold increase compared to previous reports in C. reinhardtii. This work presents a systematic investigation of bottlenecks in astaxanthin accumulation in C. reinhardtii and the phototrophic green cell factory design for competitive use in industrial biotechnology.
Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalACS Synthetic Biology
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 23 2023

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous)

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