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Overexpression of Δ12-Fatty Acid Desaturase in the Oleaginous Yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides for Production of Linoleic Acid-Rich Lipids

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Abstract

Under nutrient-limited conditions, the red yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides can accumulate neutral lipids, of which the compositional fatty acids are mainly saturated and mono-unsaturated ones with 16 or 18 carbon atoms. To improve the linoleic acid content in the lipids, we enabled galactose-inducible expression of the gene encoding Δ12-fatty acid desaturase (FADS) from Mortierella alpina or Fusarium verticillioides by integration of the corresponding expression cassettes into the genome of R. toruloides haploid and diploid strains. The relative linoleic acid content increased up to fivefold and the final linoleic acid titer reached 1.3 g/L under flask culture conditions. Our results suggested that R. toruloides may be further explored as cell factory for production of high-valued lipids and other fatty acid derivatives as bio-based chemicals and fuels.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Professors Xiaofeng Dai and Tianhong Wang for providing us Agrobacterium tumefaciens AGL1. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 31370128, 21325627).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biotechnology, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian, 116023, China

    Yanan Wang, Sufang Zhang, Wenyi Sun, Xiaobing Yang, Xiang Jiao & Zongbao K. Zhao

  2. Evonik Degussa (China) Co. Ltd., Shanghai Branch, Shanghai, 201108, China

    Markus Pötter & Li Li

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yanan Wang

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  1. Yanan Wang
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Correspondence to Sufang Zhang or Zongbao K. Zhao.

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Wang, Y., Zhang, S., Pötter, M. et al. Overexpression of Δ12-Fatty Acid Desaturase in the Oleaginous Yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides for Production of Linoleic Acid-Rich Lipids. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 180, 1497–1507 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-016-2182-9

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