Description
Ergothioneine (ERG) is a naturally occurring, exogenous antioxidant that is nonetheless abundant in the human body. It has been shown both to reduce oxidative damage and to be involved in several diseases in vivo1,2. Therefore, ergothioneine is poised to take a place in the dietary supplement industry. Here we describe the engineering of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and subsequent medium optimization to produce ergothioneine by fermentation. After integrating combinations of biosynthetic pathways from different organisms, we screened yeast strains for their production of ERG. Next, the highest producing strain was engineered with ergothioneine transporters, and its amino acid metabolism was altered by knock-out of Tor1 or Yih1. The bottleneck for ergothioneine production was determined by integration of a second copy of the pathway enzymes. We also optimized the media composition for production of ergothioneine using yeast S. cerevisiae. Following these manipulations, we obtained a titer of 630 mg/l in fed-batch cultivation in bioreactors. This work shows that with further engineering of the strain, current chemical synthesis of ergothioneine could be replaced with a sustainable alternative.| Period | 14 Jul 2019 → 18 Jul 2019 |
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| Event title | Biochemical and Molecular Engineering XXI |
| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 21 |
| Location | Mont Tremblant, CanadaShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |