RNA interference in the oleaginous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides.

The red yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides is an excellent microbial host for production of carotenoids, neutral lipids and valuable enzymes. In recent years, genetic tools for gene expression and gene disruption have been developed for this red yeast. However, methods remain limited in terms of fine-tuning gene expression. In this study, we first demonstrated successful implementation of RNA interference (RNAi) in R. toruloides NP11, which was applied to down-regulate the expression of autophagy related gene 8 (ATG8), and fatty acid synthase genes (FAS1 and FAS2), respectively. Compared with the control strain, RNAi-engineered strains showed a silencing efficiency ranging from 11% to 92%. The RNAi approach described here ensures selective inhibition of the target gene expression, and should expand our capacity in the genetic manipulation of R. toruloides for both fundamental research and advanced cell factory development. © FEMS 2019.