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Biosynthesis of Soyasapogenol B by Engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae

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Abstract

Soyasapogenol B is an oleanane-type pentacyclic triterpene that has various applications in food and healthcare and has a higher biological activity than soyasaponin. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a potential platform for terpenoid production with mature genetic tools for metabolic pathway manipulation. In this study, we developed a biosynthesis method to produce soyasapogenol B. First, we expressed β-amyrin synthase derived from Glycyrrhiza glabra in S. cerevisiae to generate β-amyrin, as the precursor of soyasapogenol B. Several different types of promoters were then used to regulate the expression of key genes in the mevalonate pathway (MVA), and this subsequently increased the yield of β-amyrin to 17.6 mg/L, 25-fold more than that produced in the original strain L01 (0.68 mg/L). Then, using the β-amyrin-producing strain, we expressed soyasapogenol B synthases from Medicago truncatula (CYP93E2 and CYP72A61V2) and from G. glabra (CYP93E3 and CYP72A566). Soyasapogenol B yields were then optimized by using soyasapogenol B synthases and cytochrome P450 reductase from G. glabra. The most effective soyasapogenol B production strain was used for fermentation, and the yield of soyasapogenol B reached 2.9 mg/L in flask and 8.36 mg/L in a 5-L bioreactor with fed glucose and ethanol. This study demonstrated the heterologous synthesis of soyasapogenol B in S. cerevisiae using the combined expression of CYP93E3 and CYP72A566 in the synthesis pathway, which significantly increased the production of soyasapogenol B and provides a reference method for the biosynthesis of other triterpenes.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Tianjin Natural Science Foundation (NO. 20JCQNJC00740) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2019YFA0905100).

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Author notes

  1. Man Li and Mengya Zhao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Man Li, Mengya Zhao, Panpan Wei, Chuanbo Zhang & Wenyu Lu

  2. Key Laboratory of System Bioengineering (Tianjin University), Ministry of Education, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

    Chuanbo Zhang & Wenyu Lu

  3. SynBio Research Platform, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

    Chuanbo Zhang & Wenyu Lu

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  1. Man Li
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Correspondence to Wenyu Lu.

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Li, M., Zhao, M., Wei, P. et al. Biosynthesis of Soyasapogenol B by Engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 193, 3202–3213 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-021-03599-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-021-03599-5

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