Metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for triterpenoid production

BIOL 131

Caroline V McNeil, cvpardue@rice.edu, Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 Main St. MS-60, Houston, TX 77005, Alyssa M. Baevich, abaevich@rice.edu, Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, 6100 Main St. MS-60, Houston, TX 77005, William K. Wilson, Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice University, 6100 Main St., MS-140, Houston, TX 77005, and Seiichi P. T. Matsuda, matsuda@rice.edu, Department of Chemistry and Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice University, 6100 S. Main St. MS 65, Houston, TX 77005.
The use of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for terpenoid production has been established, as several sterol pathway intermediates also serve as precursors for terpene synthases. Among the terpene synthases are oxidosqualene cyclases, which catalyze the cyclization of the 30-carbon precursor oxidosqualene to over 100 triterpene skeletons. Heterologous expression in metabolically engineered yeast has allowed the characterization of many of these enzymes and aided in identification of novel compounds. We present here the development and use of engineered yeast strains to accumulate the 30-carbon molecules oxidosqualene and dioxidosqualene. Expression of oxidosqualene cyclases in these strains led to the characterization of cyclization products from both of these precursors.
 

Poster Session
8:00 PM-10:00 PM, Monday, August 20, 2007 BCEC -- Exhibit Hall - B2, Poster

Division of Biological Chemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007