(12b) Using Yarrowia Lipolytica As a New Biomanufacturing Platform for Producing High-Value Products from Lipid Substrates

The oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica is able to grow on medium with any lipids as the sole carbon source, which provides us opportunities for biomanufacturing of high-value products from cost-effective agriculture feedstocks such as plant oils and animal fats. The United States produces more than 20 million tons of plant oils and animal fats every year, a value that is about twice as much as total sugars produced. While sugars are used as the primary carbon source in current biotechnology industry to make value-added fuels, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, oils and fats are usually considered as common agriculture commodities for food and feed applications and generate low or limited economic values. In our research group at UMass Lowell, we are trying to establish a new yeast biomanufacturing platform that converts oils and fats into a series of high-value products such as omega-3 fatty acids, carotenoids, wax esters, and many other lipid-derived or –assisted products. One of the major challenges for using oils/fats for large-scale biomanufacturing is the mixing and mass transfer limitations caused by the insolubility of lipids in aqueous medium. Here we will present how the multi-phase CFD simulation was used for analysis of mixing and mass transfer behaviors and design of bioreactors. The simulation results were further validated by real fermentation experiments under various bioreactor design and operating conditions. To facilitate the extracellular fatty acid uptake and intracellular fatty acid conversion, the Y. lipolytica cells were engineered to maintain certain size and morphology to accelerate the bioprocesses. Several product examples including citric acid, wax esters, and omega-3 EPA produced from a vegetable oil by the wild-type and engineered Y. lipolytica in our lab will also be presented.