S104: Yarrowia lipolytica as a production host for a natural products platform

The oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica is an attractive host for the production of several natural products via metabolic engineering.  Although Yarrowia has for years served as a major producer of citric acid, only recently has an expanded genetic tool box been developed permitting a broader utilization of Yarrowia’s unique traits as production host.  Unlike most Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, Yarrowia lipolytica’s genome can be modified via both homologous recombination and random integration allowing for additional flexibility in the metabolic engineering of this strain. Examples of natural products currently being made in Yarrowia are carotenoids, resveratrol and omega-3 fatty acids.  The approach and the genetic tools used to metabolically engineer Yarrowia for the production of the omega-3 fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) will be discussed in this work.  We recently launched a new product, New Harvest Omega-3, a vegetarian source of EPA made in an engineered strain of Yarrowia.  The construction of EPA-producing strains of Yarrowia and the approach to making strains producing other healthy omega-6 and omega-3 oils will be described.