Mycosporine-like
amino acids (MAAs) have been used in
cosmetics
and pharmaceuticals. The purpose of this work was to develop yeast
strains for sustainable and economical production of MAAs, especially
shinorine. First, genes involved in MAA biosynthetic pathway from Actinosynnema mirum were introduced into Saccharomyces cerevisiae for heterologous shinorine
production. Second, combinatorial expression of wild and mutant xylose
reductase was adopted in the engineered S. cerevisiae to facilitate xylose utilization in the pentose phosphate pathway.
Finally, the accumulation of sedoheptulose 7-phosphate (S7P) was attempted
by deleting transaldolase-encoding TAL1 in the pentose
phosphate pathway to increase carbon flux toward shinorine production.
In fed-batch fermentation, the engineered strain (DXdT-M) produced
751 mg/L shinorine in 71 h. Ultimately, 54 mg/L MAAs was produced
by DXdT-M from rice straw hydrolysate. The results suggest that shinorine
production by S. cerevisiae might be
a promising process for sustainable production and industrial applications