Metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for the production of ergothioneine

Abstract:

Objective Ergothioneine (EGT), a sulfur-rich derivative of histidine, is utilized in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. However, large-scale production of EGT faces challenges due to the high costs and inefficiency of conventional chemical synthesis and extraction techniques. This study aims to engineer Saccharomyces cerevisiae to provide a microbial platform for EGT biosynthesis.Methods The biosynthetic pathway for EGT was reconstructed in S. cerevisiae by heterologously expressing Egt1 from Neurospora crassa and Egt2 from Claviceps purpurea. To overcome the metabolic bottlenecks related to precursor supply, we optimized the upstream pathways for histidine, cysteine, methionine, and S-adenosylmethionine to enhance the flux toward EGT synthesis. Fermentation performance of the engineered strain was assessed in both shake flasks and a 5-L bioreactor.Results The engineered S. cerevisiae strain produced 312.8 mg/L of EGT in shake flask fermentation. In a 5-L bioreactor, the strain achieved the EGT titer of 1 312.2 mg/L after 168 h, with the productivity of 7.8 mg/(L·h).Conclusion This study presents a metabolic engineering strategy for producing EGT in S. cerevisiae. The approach not only significantly improves EGT biosynthesis but also serves as a reference for microbial production of other compounds.