Construction and optimization of lutein and carotenoid biosynthetic pathway in E. coli

Abstract

Recently, e.coli is used as the meaning of cell factory, which means it can make various materials by introducing the heterologous gene related to the target material biosynthetic pathway of interests to and engineering them on the genome. The current target material produced from e.coli is Lutein. Lutein is one of the carotenoid materials and the material that make up the macula, yellow spot, of eye. Its heterologous genes in biosynthetic pathway is derived from plant, 2 genes from Arabidopsis thaliana and 2 genes from Oryza sativa. The precursor of lutein is known as lycopene and the strain, which is optimized for production of lycopene, is already engineered. Totally, expression of all 4 genes inserted into the strain make the existing strain produce lutein as final product. After inserting the heterologous genes on genome and confirming their expression, there needs to be the process of optimization of biosynthetic pathway. When introducing the genes on the genome and engineering them and their genetic factors such as RBS or promoter, genome engineering tool is set up and used, which are known as MAGE. Through genome engineering, we can produce useful substances by introducing heterologous genes to and construct the optimized biosynthetic pathway of interests in E. coli.