Project description:Oleaginous yeasts are capable of accumulating high levels of intracellular storage lipids from excess carbon during times when other key nutrients are limited. The basidiomycete yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides is an emerging host for microbial cell factory applications thanks to its naturally high lipid and carotenoid production. However, the engineering toolbox in this non-model host is limited and is currently a bottleneck for implementation of metabolic engineering strategies. In this study, we performed differential gene expression analysis with the goal to identify promoters that are strongly induced or repressed by nitrogen-limitation, a condition that is commonly used to induce lipid accumulation in oleaginous yeasts. The genome-wide transcriptional response of R. toruloides BOT-A2 was analysed using RNAseq during exponential growth and nitrogen-starvation, with either glucose or xylose as the sole carbon source. To validate the differential gene expression findings, reporter genes were constructed by placing the candidate promoters in control of a fluorescent protein, integrated in BOT-A2 and evaluated in vivo.
Project description:Lipid accumulation by oleaginous microorganisms is of great scientific interest and biotechnological potential. While nitrogen limitation has been routinely employed, low-cost raw materials usually contain rich nitrogenous components, thus preventing from efficient lipid production. Inorganic phosphate (Pi) limitation has been found sufficient to promote conversion of sugars into lipids, yet the molecular basis of cellular response to Pi-limitation and concurrent lipid accumulation remains elusive. Here we performed multi-omic analyses of the oleaginous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides to shield lights on Pi-limitation induced lipid accumulation. Samples were prepared under Pi-limited as well as Pi-replete chemostat conditions, and subjected to analysis at the transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic level. In total, 7970 genes, 4212 proteins and 123 metabolites were identified. Results showed that Pi-limitation facilitates up-regulation of Pi-associated metabolism, RNA degradation and triacylglycerol biosynthesis, while down-regulation of ribosome biosynthesis and tricarboxylic acid cycle. Pi-limitation leads to de-phosphorylation of adenosine monophosphate, the allosteric activator of isocitrate dehydrogenase key to lipid biosynthesis. It was found that NADPH, the key cofactor for fatty acid biosynthesis, is limited due to reduced flux through the pentose phosphate pathway and transhydrogenation cycle, and that this can be overcomed by overexpression of an endogenous malic enzyme. These phenomena are found distinctive from those under nitrogen-limitation. The information greatly enriches our understanding on microbial oleaginicity and Pi-related metabolism. Importantly, systems data may facilitate designing advanced cell factories for production of lipids and related oleochemicals.
Project description:Nitrogen limitation is a major regulator to initiate lipid overproduction in oleaginous fungi. To examine the influence of nitrogen starvation, chemiostat cultures of R. toruloides in defined media with abundant ammonium (MM) or minute ammonium (MM-N) were performed to obtain steady-state samples. Then Illumina's digital gene expression (DGE) technology was used for high-throughput transcriptome profiling of these samples.
Project description:Nitrogen limitation is a major regulator to initiate lipid overproduction in oleaginous fungi. To examine the influence of nitrogen starvation, chemiostat cultures of R. toruloides in defined media with abundant ammonium (MM) or minute ammonium (MM-N) were performed to obtain steady-state samples. Then Illumina's digital gene expression (DGE) technology was used for high-throughput transcriptome profiling of these samples. Two samples cultured in minimum media with abundant ammonium (MM) or minute ammonium (MM-N)
Project description:Our study is the first investigation of proteome of oleaginous yeast Rhotodorula toruloides during conversion of xylose into lipids. We performed comparative proteomics of R. toruloides during cultivation of two carbon sources: glucose and xylose. Proteome analysis revealed significantly lower levels of ribosomal proteins and translation associated factors in xylose-grown cells as compared to glucose-grown cells. We showed that proteins involved in sugar transport, phospholipid and leucine biosynthesis as well as peroxisomal beta-oxidation and oxidative stress response were differentially regulated in response to carbon source.
Project description:Rhodotorula toruloides is a non-conventional, oleaginous yeast able to naturally accumulate high amounts of microbial lipids. Constraint-based modeling of R. toruloides has been mainly focused on the comparison of experimentally measured and model predicted growth rates, while the analysis of intracellular flux patterns has been superficial. Hence, the intrinsic metabolic properties of R. toruloides that make lipid synthesis possible are not thoroughly understood. At the same time, the lack of diverse physiological data sets has often been the bottleneck to predict accurate fluxes. In this study, we collected detailed physiology data sets of R. toruloides while growing on glucose, xylose and acetate as the sole carbon source in mineral medium. Regardless of the carbon source, the growth was divided into two phases from which proteomic and lipidomic data were collected. Complemental physiological parameters were collected in these two phases and altogether implemented into metabolic models. Simulated intracellular flux patterns acknowledged the role of phosphoketolase in the generation of acetyl-CoA, one of the main precursors during lipid biosynthesis, while the role of ATP citrate lyase was not confirmed. Metabolic modeling on xylose as a carbon substrate was greatly improved by the detection of chirality of D-arabinitol, which together with D-ribulose were involved in an alternative xylose assimilation pathway. Further, flux patterns pointed to a metabolic trade-offs associated with NADPH allocation between nitrogen assimilation and lipid biosynthetic pathways, which was linked to large-scale differences in protein and lipid content. This work includes the first extensive multi-condition analysis of R. toruloides using enzyme-constrained models and quantitative proteomics. Further, more precise kcat values should extend the application of the newly developed enzyme-constrained models that are publicly available for future studies.
Project description:Background: A key prerequisite for pathway engineering is the development of genetic tools and resources. Rhodosporidium toruloides is emerging as a promising host for the production of bioproducts from lignocellulosic biomass. However, there is a lack of characterized promoters to drive expression of heterologous genes for strain engineering in R. toruloides. Results: The resulting data describes a set of native R. toruloides promoters, characterized over time in four media commonly used for this yeast. The promoter sequences were sorted using transcriptional analysis and several of them were found to drive expression bidirectionally. We measured promoter expression by flow cytometry using a dual fluorescent reporter system. From these analyses, we found a total of 20 constitutive promoters (12 monodirectional and 8 bidirectional), that are strong, stable, and can reliably be used for genetic manipulation of this emergent host. Conclusions: We are presenting a list of robust constitutive promoters that are native to the emergent bioconversion host R. toruloides which helps to fulfill the lack of existing tools for this yeast and that can be applied in future metabolic engineering studies.