(239d) Does the Introduction of Non-Native Secondary Metabolite Pathways Affect Flux in Upstream Primary Metabolism? A 13C-Metabolic Flux Analysis of Yeast Engineered to Produce Artemisinin Precursors

Does the Introduction of Non-Native Secondary Metabolite Pathways Affect Flux in Upstream Primary Metabolism? A 13C-Metabolic Flux Analysis of Yeast Engineered to Produce Artemisinin Precursors

There is rising interest in metabolic engineering of microorganisms such as yeast for production of valuable non-native compounds.  The successful genetic engineering of a non-native pathway may have systems-level implications on other, apparently unrelated pathways. 'Omics tools permit an investigation of such phenomena. Specifically, isotope-assisted metabolic flux analysis enables the quantitative visualization of fluxes through metabolic pathways in a systemwide manner and thereby enables identification of factors contributing to lack of success of a genetic engineering attempt. In this study, we employ ¹³C isotope-assisted metabolic flux analysis for investigating fluxes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains engineered to express genes in downstream, secondary metabolie pathways in an inducible manner. This presentation will report the results of this analysis, specifically how such secondary pathways can potentially influence primary metabolic pathways.