Metabolic Engineering of Saccharomyces Cerevisiae for Production of Short / Medium Chain Fatty Acids

Short / medium chain fatty acids (S/MCFAs, 6-12 carbons) are important industrial chemicals used to produce a range of commercial molecules, which serve as oleochemicals for coatings, plasticizers, soaps, detergents, lubricants and flavors, and transportation fuels alternative to current gasoline and jet fuel. Growing concerns over the environment and unsustainable petroleum resources have led to efforts to develop S/MCFA based fuels with improved quality rather than traditional bioethanol. However, limited annual output of coconut oil, the plant oil extracted from the fruits of tropical coconut palm and rich in medium-chain triglycerides, is insufficient for the bulk production of short / medium chain biofuels. Exploitation of the microbial biosynthetic pathways via metabolic engineering and synthetic biology tools provides a sustainable way to economically and steadily produce these kinds of fatty acids by transformation of lignocellulosic biomass based materials. And the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is selected as the microbial cell factory for these products based on some superior features, such as easily accessible genetic manipulation tools, well-characterized cellular genetic, metabolic and regulatory processes, simple culture media, and inexpensive industrialization via the exist infrastructures of bioethanol. We therefore engineered yeast metabolism to produce S/MCFAs and this engineered strain represent an excellent platform cell factory for future development of bioprocesses for production of these valuable chemicals.