TY - JOUR A1 - Wernig, Florian A1 - Baumann, Leonie A1 - Boles, Eckhard A1 - Oreb, Igor-Mislav T1 - Production of octanoic acid in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: investigation of new precursor supply engineering strategies and intrinsic limitations T2 - Biotechnology & bioengineering N2 - The eight-carbon fatty acid octanoic acid (OA) is an important platform chemical and precursor of many industrially relevant products. Its microbial biosynthesis is regarded as a promising alternative to current unsustainable production methods. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the production of OA had been previously achieved by rational engineering of the fatty acid synthase. For the supply of the precursor molecule acetyl-CoA and of the redox cofactor NADPH, the native pyruvate dehydrogenase bypass had been harnessed, or the cells had been additionally provided with a pathway involving a heterologous ATP-citrate lyase. Here, we redirected the flux of glucose towards the oxidative branch of the pentose phosphate pathway and overexpressed a heterologous phosphoketolase/phosphotransacetylase shunt to improve the supply of NADPH and acetyl-CoA in a strain background with abolished OA degradation. We show that these modifications lead to an increased yield of OA during the consumption of glucose by more than 60% compared to the parental strain. Furthermore, we investigated different genetic engineering targets to identify potential factors that limit the OA production in yeast. Toxicity assays performed with the engineered strains suggest that the inhibitory effects of OA on cell growth likely impose an upper limit to attainable OA yields. KW - acetyl-CoA KW - octanoic acid KW - phosphoketolase KW - phosphotransacetylase Y1 - 2021 UR - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/63894 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-638948 SN - 1097-0290 N1 - This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No. 720824. VL - 118 IS - 8 SP - 3046 EP - 3057 PB - Wiley CY - New York, NY [u.a.] ER -