Metabolic Engineering of Yarrowia lipolytica to Produce High Value Products

The oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica has been used as a host for production of carotenoids, resveratrol, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids by metabolic engineering at DuPont.  Two commercial products have been developed, “New Harvest”, a clean, renewable and vegetarian oil with eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, C20:5, omega-3 fatty acid) at 55% (weight/weight) for human nutrition supplement and “Verlasso^R”, a premium branded salmon which is sustainably farmed due to incorporating EPA-rich Yarrowia biomass in the feed The yeast triacylglyceride oil has a unique fatty acid profile with less than 5% as saturated fatty acids and more than 55% as EPA.  The oil with this fatty acid profile provides significant health benefits for human and animals.  A most advanced Yarrowia production strain has been generated to produce EPA at >25% dry cell weight, a titer  that is 67% higher than was obtained with the strain we previously reported (Nature Biotechnology, 2013, 8: 734-740).  We will describe how the strain was generated and outline the learnings of our journey from lab research to commercial products.