Yarrowia lipolytica Modified to Enhance Fatty Alcohol-Producing Capability

Fatty alcohols are important chemicals used in detergents, surfactants and personal care products. Biosynthesized fatty alcohol provides a promising alternative to traditional fatty alcohol industry. Harnessing microorganisms for fatty alcohol production could be a new strategy to achieve commercial production levels.

Washington State University researchers introduced a fatty acyl-CoA reductase (FAR), TaFAR1, to directly convert fatty acyl-CoA to fatty alcohol in the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica. Optimizations, including eliminating the fatty alcohol degradation pathway, enhancing TaFAR1 expression, and increasing fatty acyl-CoA supply were also conducted, resulting in 63-fold increase in the fatty alcohol-producing capability in the transgenic yeast.

This study demonstrated the development of a Y. lipolytica fatty alcohol-producing cell factor and explored fatty alcohol-producing capability through genetic modification using FAR and fatty acid metabolism.