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Table 1 Progresses of β-carotene biosynthesis in the last decade

From: Biotechnological advances for improving natural pigment production: a state-of-the-art review

Strain

Strategy

Yield

Year

Refs.

Native producers

 Blakeslea trispora

Development of new cultivation equipment

44.56 mg/g DCW, 8 days (bubble column reactor)

2012

Nanou et al. (2012)

 Blakeslea trispora

Increase of oxygen concentration and induced high oxidative stress via addition of 3% (v/v) liquid paraffin

715 mg/L

84 h (shake flask)

2013

Hu et al. (2013)

 Mucor circinelloides

Strain mutagenesis with UV and NTG

4 mg/g DCW (shake flask)

2016

Zhang et al. (2016b)

 Blakeslea trispora

Addition of sodium acetate (NaAC) in mated B. trispora

59.91 mg/g DCW

2130 mg/L, 8 days (shake flask)

2016

Jing et al. (2016)

 Blakeslea trispora

Optimization of cultivation by single factor and response surface test

523.8 mg/L (shake flask)

2020

Chang-he et al. (2020)

 Blakeslea trispora

Protoplast fusion between ATCC 14,272( +) and ATCC 14,272(−)

36.93 mg/gDW (shake flask)

2021

Wang et al. (2021b)

 Blakeslea trispora

Regulation of light and active oxygen

5.0 mg·g DW (shake flask)

2021

Luo et al. (2021)

 Rhodotorula glutinis

Optimization of carbon:nitrogen (C/N) ratios (20:1, 50:1, 70:1, and 100:1) to analyze carotenoid and lipid biosynthesis

N.A

2017

Tkáčová et al. (2017)

 Rhodotorula glutinis

Supplementation of vegetable oils as carbon source and optimization of bioreactor

0.36 mg/L

156 h (agitator bioreactor)

2019

Yen et al. (2019)

Heterologous hosts

 S. cerevisiae

Overexpressing HMG-CoA reductase gene and adding ergosterol synthesis inhibitor ketoconazole

6.29 mg/g DCW

2012

Yan et al. (2012)

 S. cerevisiae

Deletion of gene rox1, yjl064w and ypl062w

 ~ 2.1 mg/g DCW

2013

Ozaydin et al. (2013)

 S. cerevisiae

Design of a set of marker recyclable integrative plasmids (pMRI) for decentralized assembly of reconstructing controllable multi-gene pathways by employing the GAL regulatory system

7.41 mg/g DCW

(shake flask culture)

2013

Xie et al. (2014)

 S. cerevisiae

Introduction of crtE, crtYB and crtI from Phaffia rhodozyma into S. cerevisiae INVSc1; Additional expression of the catalytic domain of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (cHMG1)

528.8 ± 13.3 μg/g DCW

(shake flask culture)

2014

Shi et al. (2014)

 S. cerevisiae

Increasing the gene transcription of MVA pathway, by reducing temperature from 30℃ to 4℃;supplementation of 30 mg/L triclosan, an inhibitor of fatty acid synthesis

4.94 mg/g DCW

(shake flask culture)

2015

Sun et al. (2015)

 S. cerevisiae

Enriching unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) contents by exogenous supplementation or strengthening their biosynthesis

2.83 mg/g DCW

2016

Sun et al. (2016)

 S. cerevisiae

Discovery the relationship between carotenoid biosynthesis and cell membrane (CM) fluidity via genome-wide transcriptional analysis as well as optimization of CM fluidity by supplying linoleic acid

4.65 mg/g DCW

(shake flask culture)

2016

Liu et al. (2016a)

 S. cerevisiae

Development of an inducer/repressor-free sequential control strategy regulated by glucose concentration for two-phase cultivation of engineering strains

20.79 mg/g DCW

(fed-batch fermentation)

2016

Xie et al. (2015a)

 S. cerevisiae

Identification and overexpression of novel gene targets outside the isoprenoid pathway, including genes encoding 14–3-3 protein (Bmh1), class E protein of the vacuolar protein-sorting pathway (Did2), translation initiation factor (Tif5), and vacuolar H( +)-ATPase subunit 1 (Voa1)

5.9 ± 0.1 mg/g DCW

2017

Li et al. (2017)

 S. cerevisiae

Introduction of a beta-carotene biosynthetic pathway containing crtYB, crtI, and crtE from Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous in a xylose-fermenting S. cerevisiae

772.8 mg/L

2020

Sun et al. (2020)

 S. cerevisiae

Expression of lipases of LIP2, LIP7, LIP8, and introduction of beta-carotene biosynthetic pathway from Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous

46.5 mg/g DCW

2021

Fathi et al. (2021)

 E. coli

Engineering MEP module and β-carotene synthesis module; engineering of ATP synthesis, pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) and TCA modules;

2.1 g/L

60 mg/g DCW

(fed-batch fermentation)

2013

Zhao et al. (2013)

 E. coli

Overexpression of the complete β-carotene synthetic pathway (including dxs, ipiHP1, crtE, crtB, crtI, and crtY genes) and the entire MVA pathway (namely, mvaE, mvaS, mvaK1, mvaK2, mvaD, and idi genes),

2.47 g/L

72 mg/g DCW

(fed-batch culture)

2013

Nam et al. (2013)

 E. coli

Improving the supply of precursor-IPP and GPP by optimization of MEP pathway and introduction of hybrid MVA pathway

256.8 mg/L in flask culture and 3.2 g/L in fed-batch fermentation

2014

Yang and Guo (2014)

 E. coli

Engineering the cell membrane in both morphological and biosynthetic aspects by overexpressing membrane-bending proteins and engineering the membrane synthesis pathway

44.2 mg/g DCW (shake flask culture)

2017

Wu et al. (2017)

 E. coli

Knockout of a few proteins related to the formation mechanism of outer membrane vesicles like tolR and nlpI were to promote the excretion of β-carotene; overexpression of both AccABCD and PlsBC to supplement the loss of membrane components

44.8 mg/g DCW (shake flask cultivation)

2019

Wu et al. (2019a)

 E. coli

Regulation of central carbon metabolism by knockout of zwf and pts genes and improving NADPH supply by overexpression of nadk gene

266.4 mg/L in flask culture and 2579.1 mg/L in bioreactor fermentation

2020

Wu et al. (2020b)

 E. coli

Integration of systems metabolic engineering, cell morphology engineering, inner- and outer-membrane vesicle formation, and cultivation optimization

343 mg/L

2021

Yang et al. (2021)

 Yarrowia lipolytica

Optimization of promoter strength and gene copy number

4 g/L

(fed-batch fermentation)

2017

Gao et al.( 2017)

 Yarrowia lipolytica

Development of a combinatorial synthetic biology approach based on Golden Gate DNA assembly to screen the optimum promoter–gene pairs for each transcriptional step

6.5 g/L

90 mg/g DCW

(fed-batch fermentation)

2018

Larroude et al. (2018)

 Yarrowia lipolytica

Promoting the synthesis of precursor substrates by overexpression of hexokinase (Hxk) and hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA synthase (Erg13)

2.4 g/L (fed-batch fermentation)

2020

Qiang et al. (2020)

 Yarrowia lipolytica

Construction of codon-adapted CarRA and CarRB and maintaining metabolic balance by regulation of the expression level of enzymes involved in rate-limiting steps

1.7 g/L and 21.6 mg/g DCW (fed-batch fermentation)

2021

Liu et al. (2021b)