Development of synthetic biology tools to engineer Pichia pastoris as a chassis for the production of natural products.

The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris (a.k.a. Komagataella phaffii) is one of the most commonly used hosts for industrial production of recombinant proteins. As a non-conventional yeast, P. pastoris has unique biological characteristics and its expression system has been well developed. With the advances in synthetic biology, more efforts have been devoted to developing P. pastoris into a chassis for the production of various high-value compounds, such as natural products. This review begins with the introduction of synthetic biology tools for the engineering of P. pastoris, including vectors, promoters, and terminators for heterologous gene expression as well as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR-associated System (CRISPR/Cas) for genome editing. This review is then followed by examples of the production of value-added natural products in metabolically engineered P. pastoris strains. Finally, challenges and outlooks in developing P. pastoris as a synthetic biology chassis are prospected.

Introduction

Natural products generally refer to secondary metabolites isolated from animals, plants, and microorganisms, which have special physiological activities. Many high-value natural products play an extremely important role in medicine, cosmetics, and industry [1]. However, natural products generally have complex chemical structures and are extracted from sources with long growth periods and extremely low abundance, resulting in short supply and high cost, particularly those with plant origins [2]. With the development of synthetic biology, various microorganisms including Pichia pastoris (a.k.a. Komagataella phaffii) have been developed as cell factories to produce natural products [[3], [4], [5]]. Compared with bacterial cell factories (i.e. Escherichia coli), the ability of post-translational modifications and the presence of inner membrane systems make yeasts including P. pastoris preferred hosts to express eukaryotic complex proteins, such as cytochrome P450s (CYPs), which are often involved in the biosynthesis of natural products [6]. When compared with the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, P. pastoris has the advantage of strong and tightly regulated promoters for high level expression of recombinant proteins [7]. For example, the expression level of the target gene can account for more than 30% of the total proteins of P. pastoris, which is much higher than that in S. cerevisiae [8]. In addition, hyperglycosylation is another concern for expressing eukaryotic proteins in the S. cerevisiae expression system [9]. Natural product biosynthetic pathway enzymes (i.e. polyketide synthases and CYPs) are generally found to have relatively low catalytic activities, which should be expressed at high levels to achieve efficient biosynthesis. Therefore, P. pastoris is a promising host for large-scale production of natural products, particularly those with eukaryotic origins.

Although generally considered as a non-conventional yeast, genetics, physiology, and cell biology of P. pastoris have been studied in-depth [4]. The genomes of P. pastoris GS115 and CBS7435 have been sequenced and annotated, and genome-scale metabolic models have been constructed by analyzing the metabolic patterns [10]. Metabolomics studies indicate that the intermediate metabolites of P. pastoris and S. cerevisiae are very similar, with identical metabolites up to 90% [11]. The exploration of the genetic background of P. pastoris has laid a solid foundation for customized modification of P. pastoris. Currently, besides therapeutic proteins and enzymes [12], P. pastoris has been engineered to produce various chemicals and value-added compounds, such as d-lactic acid [13], 2,3-butanediol (BDO) [14], 2-phenylethanol [15], isobutanol and isobutyl acetate [16], carotenoids [17], lovastatin [18], and nootkatone [19] (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

P. pastoris as a cell factory for the production of natural products. P. pastoris converts various carbon sources (i.e. methanol, glycerol, and glucose) into a few central metabolites (i.e. pyruvate and acetyl-CoA), which serve as the precursors for the biosynthesis of a variety of natural products (i.e. terpenoids, polyketides, and flavonoids).

In this review, the synthetic biology tools needed for the construction and optimization of natural product biosynthetic pathways in P. pastoris are firstly summarized, in particular the heterologous gene expression system and the CRISPR/Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR-associated System) based genome editing system. Subsequently, several examples of the establishment of P. pastoris as cell factories for the production of terpenoids, polyketides, and flavonoids are introduced. Finally, future perspectives in the development of novel synthetic biology tools for the assembly and integration of multi-gene biosynthetic pathways and high throughput genome engineering are discussed.

Synthetic biology toolkit for P. pastoris

Gene expression vectors

The most common way to introduce exogenous genes into P. pastoris is to construct recombinant vectors. The method of plasmid maintenance in yeast is through auxotrophic markers or resistance selection markers (Table 1) [20]. Plasmids can be divided into episomal plasmids and integrative plasmids according to the way existing in the host. Unfortunately, the episomal plasmids suffer from low stability and genome integration is generally preferred for high level expression of heterologous genes in P. pastoris. Usually the vector is linearized and integrated into the P. pastoris genome in a single copy manner. For example, the vectors pPIC9K-His and pHIL-S1 can be linearized by SalI for the integration into the HIS4 locus of P. pastoris GS115, which are then screened in histidine-dropout medium to obtain single-copy integrated strains [21,22]. In addition to single-copy integration, multi-copy integration is generally demanded for high-level expression of the target proteins. The pPIC series of vectors are commonly used integrative vectors in P. pastoris [[23], [24], [25], [26]], which enable the screening of the multi-copy integration strains under high concentration of antibiotics, a mechanism known as post-transformation amplification [[27], [28], [29], [30]]. In addition to the formation of tandem repeats via post-transformation amplification, multi-copy strains can be constructed by integrating into the repetitive sequences of the P. pastoris genome, such as the ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequences [13].

Table 1

Gene expression vectors commonly used in P. pastoris.

Plasmid backbone	ARS or integration locus	Copy numbers	Selection markers	Episomal or Integrative	Reference
pHIL-S1a	HIS4	1.0	HIS4	Integrative	[21]
pPIC9Ka,b or pPIC9K-Hisa,b	HIS4/AOX1	1.0 or 4.0–6.0	HIS4/G418r	Integrative	[23,[34], [35], [36], [37]]
pPIC3.5Kb	HIS4/AOX1	1.0	HIS4/G418r	Integrative	[24]
pGAPZb,c	GAP	1.0 or 21	Zeocinr	Integrative	[14,27,38]
pPICZ	AOX1	1.0 or 10.0	Zeocinr	Integrative	[25,26,28]
pAO815	HIS4/AOX1	1.0	HIS4	Integrative	[39]
pPink HC or pPink LC	TRP2	2.0–4.0	ADE2	Integrative	[40,41]
pGLY2664b	TRP2	2.0–12.0	ADE2/Zeocinr	Integrative	[42]
pUC19c	rDNA	~9.0	Zeocinr	Integrative	[13]
pPICZαa,b	AOX1	~10.0	Zeocinr	Integrative	[29]
pMCOa	HIS4	2.0–16.0	G418r	Integrative	[30]
pGHYB	GAP	~3.0	Hygromycinr	Integrative	[43]
pPIC9Kd	panARS	~18.0	HIS4	Episomal	[32]
pPIC9Kd	PARS1	~15.0	HIS4	Episomal	[32]
pPIC9Kd	mitoARS	~14.0	HIS4	Episomal	[32]
pPIC9Kd	PpARS2	~4.0	HIS4	Episomal	[32]
pPIC9Kd	ScARS	~4.0	HIS4	Episomal	[32]
pSEC-SUMO	panARS	~19.0	Zeocinr	Episomal	[33]
pMito	mtDNA	~3.0	HIS4	Episomal	[44]
pPICZαBHFa	PARS1	~7.0	Zeocinr	Episomal	[45]
pBGP1a	PARS1	N.A.	Zeocinr	Episomal	[46,47]
pPEHαa	PARS1	N.A.	HIS4	Episomal	[48]

Note.

These plasmids contain a signal peptide for protein secretion.

These P. pastoris integrative plasmids have both auxotrophic markers (i.e. HIS4 and ADE2) for single-copy integration and resistance markers (i.e. G418r and Zeocinr) for multi-copy integration. High-copy strains can be generally constructed by screening on high concentration of antibiotics.

High-copy strains (up to 21 copies) were constructed by integrating the expression cassettes into the ribosomal DNA loci and screening under high Zeocin concentration conditions. Insert the HIS4 gene into the plasmid to obtain a single copy strain.

With pPIC9K as the backbone, a series of episomal plasmids were constructed by adding different yeast replicons (ARSs).

Nevertheless, episomal expression possesses unique advantages for several applications, such as the combinatorial optimization of multi-gene biosynthetic pathways and the development of efficient CRISPR-based genome editing tools [31]. In this case, a set of episomal vectors with various autonomously replicating sequences (ARSs) have been constructed and systematically compared for their transformation efficiency, copy numbers, and reproductive stability (Table 1) [32]. Of a particular note, panARS, a broad host ARS derived from Kluyveromyces lactis, was found to enable the highest plasmid stability and chosen for the development of an efficient CRISPR/Cas9 system for P. pastoris [33].

Promoters and terminators

Promoters are considered as the most important synthetic biology elements and have direct impacts on the expression of the transcription units. The selection of appropriate promoters with the desirable strength is essential to construct well-controlled synthetic biology modules and to achieve optimal expression of the target genes. The alcohol oxidase 1 promoter (pAOX1) and the glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase promoter (pGAP) are two most commonly used promoters [49]. The AOX1 promoter is generally considered as the strongest promoter of P. pastoris, which is strongly induced by methanol and inhibited by glycerol, ethanol, and glucose. Under the full induction conditions, Aox1p accounted for more than 30% of the total cellular proteins (Table 2) [50]. The GAP promoter is a strong constitutive promoter, whose expression strength is relatively stable. The expression level of some foreign proteins under the control of pGAP can reach up to the level of g/L [51].

Table 2

P. pastoris promoters commonly used for the expression of heterologous genes.

Promoter	Type	Relative Strengtha		Locus tag	Reference
		Methanol	Glucose
pAOX1	Methanol inducible	~18	/	PAS_chr4_0821	[49]
pAOX176b	Methanol inducible	~26	/	/	[55]
pAOX737-△D+3Dc	Methanol inducible	~28	/	/	[56]
pAOX2	Methanol inducible	1.8 ± 0.2	/	PAS_chr4_0152	[52]
pAOX2-mutantd	Methanol inducible	~18	/	/	[58]
pCAT1	Methanol inducible	~18	/	PAS_chr2-2_0131	[62]
pCAT1-mutante	Methanol inducible	~23	/	PAS_chr2-2_0131	[62]
pDAS2	Methanol inducible	24.1 ± 3.3	/	PAS_chr3_0834	[52]
pFLD1	Methanol inducible	10.9 ± 1.1	/	PAS_chr3_1028	[52]
pPMP20	Methanol inducible	16.4 ± 3.3	/	PAS_chr1-4_0547	[52]
pDAS1	Methanol inducible	14.7 ± 2.7	/	PAS_chr3_0832	[52]
pFDH1	Methanol inducible	14.2 ± 2.2	/	PAS_chr3_0932	[52]
p0374	Methanol inducible	~4	/	PAS_chr3_0374	[49]
p0319	Methanol inducible	~3	/	PAS_chr1-1_0319	[49]
p0547	Methanol inducible	~2	/	PAS_chr1-4_0547	[49]
p0472f	Constitutive	~3 or 22	~0.5	PAS_chr2-1_0472	[49,54]
pGAP	Constitutive	1.0	~2.3	PAS_chr2-1_0437	[49]
p0769	Constitutive	~0.4	~1.8	PAS_chr2-1_0769	[49]
p0072	Constitutive	~0.3	~1.4	PAS_chr1-1_0072	[49]
pPDCg	Constitutive	~0.5	~3.5 or 4.7	PAS_chr3_0188	[49,53]
pPDI1	Constitutive	~0.5	~0.4	PAS_chr4_0844	[63]

Note.

Promoter strengths are normalized to that of the constitutive promoter (pGAP) under methanol conditions.

pAOX176 is generated by removing a small number of bases before the TATA box of pAOX1.

pAOX737 represents that the bases from −940 to −737 bp of pAOX1 are deleted. Region D is defined as the position of −638 to −510 bp in pAOX1. -△D+3D means the deletion of region D followed by the addition of 3 copies of region D at the 5′-end of pAOX1.

pAOX2-mutant is obtained by mutating the bases at −255 and −456 positions of pAOX2.

pCAT1-mutant represents that the bases from −433 to −411 bp of pCAT1 are duplicated.

p0472 is 3 times stronger than pGAP when expressing recombinant α-amylase, while 22 times stronger when expressing xylanase.

pPDC is 1.5 times stronger than pGAP when expressing recombinant α-amylase, while 2 times stronger when expressing human growth hormone.

To explore metabolic engineering and synthetic biology applications, a series of promoters with different properties have been characterized and engineered [52]. Based on RNA-seq results, p0188 (Pyruvate decarboxylase isozyme, locus tag: PAS_chr3_0188) was determined to be the strongest constitutive promoter and Aslan et al. found that p0188 had a strong driving force and the strength could reach up to 2-fold as that of pGAP [53]. By combining RNA-seq and mRNA folding free energy, 16 promoter candidates were selected and characterized with glucose, glycerol, or methanol as the sole carbon source, respectively. The p0547 (peroxidase promoter, locus tag: PAS_chr1-4_0547) and p0472 (mitochondrial alcohol dehydrogenase isozyme III, locus tag: PAS_chr2-1_0472) were determined to be the strongest methanol‐inducible and constitutive promoters to express α‐amylase, respectively [49]. Interestingly, in another separate study, Karaoglan et al. found that the ADH3 promoter (locus tag: PAS_chr2-1_0472) performed even better than the AOX1 promoter when using methanol as the sole carbon source to express Aspergillus niger xylanase [54].

In addition to the mining and characterization of endogenous promoters, existing promoters can be modified to possess the desirable features. For example, at least 12 cis-acting elements were found in the AOX1 promoter and a promoter library of pAOX1 is constructed by deleting and replicating the putative transcription factor binding modules. The activity range of the promoter library is 10%–160% of the wild-type pAOX1 [55]. A key transcription factor, called Mxr1p, was determined to be essential for the induction of pAOX1 by methanol [56]. Due to the toxicity of methanol, Shen et al. established a methanol-free expression system using AOX1 promoter mutants, in which the mutant promoter was induced by dihydroxyacetone and suppressed by glucose. The strength of this protein expression system can reach 50%–60% of the wild-type pAOX1 expression system [57]. Dai et al. identified a pAOX2 mutant, whose expression level was even higher than that of pAOX1. DNA sequencing revealed two point mutations at positions of −529 bp and −255 bp responsible for the dramatically improved promoter strength [58].

Terminators have been found to have important regulatory effects on transcription termination and the half-life of mRNA in S. cerevisiae [59,60]. However, the significance of terminators is largely overlooked and little work has been done on the characterization of P. pastoris terminators. Vogl et al. tested the effect of different terminators on the expression of eGFP (enhanced green fluorescent reporter protein) under the control of AOX1 promoter and AOX1 terminator was found to enable the highest fluorescence intensity. In addition, inserting NotI restriction site into the AOX1 terminator can further increase the fluorescence intensity by 37% [52]. Ito et al. characterized 72 terminators derived from P. pastoris, S. cerevisiae, and synthetic terminators, and found that the tunable range could reach up to 17-fold. Interestingly, the S. cerevisiae terminators could maintain their function after being transferred to P. pastoris [61]. These preliminary studies indicated the significance of terminators in regulating the expression level of heterologous genes and more mechanistic studies should be carried out in the near future.

Genome editing tools

As a fundamental tool, genome editing technology is essential for establishing P. pastoris as cell factories for recombinant proteins and value-added compounds. In the very beginning, site-directed gene integration and gene knockout were achieved through homologous recombination. Construction of a selection marker-containing plasmid that is capable of gene replacement in P. pastoris is one of the first genome editing tools [64]. For example, HIS4, URA3, and URA5 genes are often used as selection markers in the corresponding defective P. pastoris strains [65]. However, these genome editing techniques usually leave selection marker expression cassettes in the host, which is not desirable for subsequent genetic manipulations and industrial applications. To enable multiple rounds of genome editing, Cre/loxP system was introduced into P. pastoris. Cre is a site-specific recombinase that specifically recognizes and recombines genes between two loxP loci. The advantage of this technology is that antibiotic resistance genes can be used for screening first and then recycled after the disruption of the target gene [66]. In addition, mazF, a toxic gene from E. coli, was used to construct a set of counter-selection techniques for marker-less genome editing in P. pastoris [67].

In recent years, emerging genome editing tools, such as ZFN (Zinc-finger nucleases), TALEN (transcription activator-like effector nucleases), and CRISPR/Cas, have revolutionized our capability of genetic manipulations of microbial cell factories (Fig. 2). These technologies use specific nucleases to create double-strand breaks (DSB) at the corresponding loci, which are repaired by homologous recombination (HR) or non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) to achieve the desirable genome editing. Particularly, the CRISPR/Cas system is the most widely used and most powerful genome editing technology. The CRISPR/Cas9 system is derived from the immune defense systems of bacteria and archaea [68], and has received in-depth research in microbial cell factories development, plant breeding, animal breeding, disease modeling, and biotherapy [69]. Weninger et al. systematically optimized the CRISPR/Cas9 expression system to achieve efficient and precise genome editing in P. pastoris, including but not limited to Cas9 coding sequences, gRNA sequences, gRNA structures (i.e. with ribozyme sequences), and promoters for the expression of Cas9 and gRNAs [70]. Among 95 combinations, only 6 constructs were found to be functional for genome editing, indicating the necessity for further optimization (Table 3). For example, Gu et al. found that the replacement of the origin of replication of the bearing plasmid from PARS1 to panARS increased the disruption efficiency of ADE2 locus from ~10% to ~80% [32]. In addition, Dalvie et al. developed a sequencing-based strategy for the design of host-specific cassettes for modular and efficient expression of gRNAs and achieved high genome editing efficiency up to 95% [71]. Besides gene disruption, multiplex integration of heterologous genes is another essential synthetic biology tool for establishing P. pastoris as cell factories for natural products. Simultaneous integration of multiple genes was reported in a KU70-deficient P. pastoris strain, with an integration efficiency ranged from 57.7% to 70% and 12.5%–32.1% for double- and triple-loci, respectively [72].

Fig. 2

Three emerging genome editing techniques, including ZFN, TALEN and CRISPR/Cas9.

Table 3

CRISPR/Cas9 systems for genome editing of P. pastoris.

Cas9 promoter	sgRNA promoter, promoter type	Host	Target(s)	Donor length	Efficiency	References
pHTX1	pHTX1, II	CBS7435	GUT1	1000 bp	87–94%	[70]
pENO1	ptRNA-tRNA1, III	NRRL Y-11430	GUT1	500 bp	95%	[71,73]
pHTX1	pHTX1, II	GS115 △ku70	2 locia	1000 bp	57.7–70%	[72]
pHTX1	pHTX1, II	GS115 △ku70	3 locib	1000 bp	12.5–32%	[72]
pGAP	pHTX1, II	GS115	MXR1	~600 bp	>80%	[74]
pGAP	pSER, III	GS115	ADE2	250 bp	80%	[32]
pGAP	pHTX1, II	GS115	Gt1	None	100%	[31]
pHTX1	pHTX1, II	CBS7435 △ku70	GUT1	1000 bp	78–91%c	[75]
pHTX1	pHTX1, II	CBS7435 △ku70	GUT1	1000 bp	80–95%d	[75]
pHTX1	pHTX1, II	CBS7435 △ku70	GUT1	1000 bp	100%e	[75]
pHTX1	pHTX1, II	KM71	PDC1	1000 bp	N.A	[76]

Any two loci of pAOX1, pFLD1, and pTEF1 were simultaneously targeted.

pAOX1, pFLD1, and pTEF1 were simultaneously targeted. None means that no donor was added and DSB was repaired by NHEJ during CRISPR editing.

Integration efficiency using the canonically designed DNA donor.

Integration efficiency using DNA donor with a selection marker (zeocinr).

Integration efficiency using DNA donor with a replicon (ARS).

Engineering of P. pastoris to produce natural products

Terpenoids

Terpenoids are value-added natural products derived from mevalonate and widely existed in nature, including but not limited to higher plants, fungi, and microorganisms. Many terpenoids have been found applications in medicine, food, cosmetics, animal feeds, and industry, leading to the exploration of the production of terpenoids using microbial cell factories. Bhataya et al. introduced the lycopene biosynthetic pathway into non-carotenogenic P. pastoris for the first time. Two lycopene-pathway plasmids were constructed, with plasmid pGAPZB-EBI* harboring genes crtE, crtB, and crtI and plasmid pGAPZB-EpBpI*p harboring the same set of genes with a peroxisomal targeting sequence (PTS1). Similar amount of lycopene was produced in the two yeast strains, indicating that the supply of FPP might be limited in P. pastoris. One clone expressing pGAPZB-EpBpI*p with the highest lycopene production was identified and further optimized by investigating the effects of culturing conditions (i.e. carbon sources and aerations). Finally, the production of lycopene reached up to 73.9 mg/L in the basic medium with glucose as the carbon source [77]. Later, β-carotene was synthesized by additionally integrating the lycopene β-cyclase gene from Ficus carica into the chromosome of the lycopene-producing strain, leading to the production of 339 μg of β-carotene per gram dry cell weight (DCW) [17]. Starting from the β-carotene-producing strain, further introduction of β-carotene ketolase gene (crtW) and β-carotene hydroxylase gene (crtZ) from Agrobacterium aurantiacum resulted in the production of 3.7 μg/g DCW of astaxanthin in P. pastoris [78]. In another study, Vogl et al. characterized a panel of promoters in the methanol utilization pathway of P. pastoris, which were further employed for combinatorial optimization of the β-carotene biosynthetic pathway. With different combinations of the methanol inducible promoters, the production of β-carotene can be varied for more than 10-fold. Via choosing appropriate promoters from the established promoter library, the yield of β-carotene reached up to 5 mg/g DCW [52].

(+)-Nootkatone, an excellent fragrance and insect repellent, have also been successfully produced in P. pastoris. The introduction of valencene synthase resulted in the biosynthesis of (+)-valencene. Followed by the co-expression of the premnaspirodiene oxygenase from Hyoscyamus muticus (HPO) and the cytochrome P450 reductase from Arabidopsis thaliana, (+)-valencene was hydroxylated to produce trans-nootkatol. Trans-nootkatol was then oxidized to (+)-nootkatone by the intrinsic activity of P. pastoris. The production of (+)-nootkatone was 17 mg/L in a shake flask and 208 mg/L in a bioreactor, respectively [19]. Interestingly, the overexpression of RAD52, which is responsible for DNA repair and recombination, improved the production of trans-nootkatol by 5-fold [79].

Dammarenediol-II is a triterpenoid with multiple pharmacological activities. On the basis of the natural triterpene biosynthesis pathway [80,81], Liu et al. introduced PgDDS from Panax ginseng, encoding a dammarenediol-II synthase that catalyzed the production of dammarenediol-II from 2,3-oxidosqualene, to successfully construct a dammarenediol-II producing P. pastoris strain (Fig. 3). By increasing the expression of ERG1 to enhance the supply of 2,3-oxidosqualene and downregulating the expression of ERG7 to decrease the production of lanosterol from 2,3-oxidosqualene, the yield of dammarenediol-II was increased from 0.03 mg/g DCW to 0.736 mg/g DCW. Finally, by extra supplementation of 0.5 g/L squalene into the culture medium, the yield of dammarenediol-II reached up to 1.073 mg/g DCW.

Fig. 3

Biosynthetic pathway of dammarenediol-II and MK4 in P. pastoris. This study was carried out on the basis of the natural triterpene synthesis pathway. By introducing the exogenous PgDDS gene, encoding a dammarenediol synthase, the target compound dammarenediol-II was produced from 2,3-oxidosqualene in P. pastoris. The green arrow indicated the down-regulated gene (ERG7) and the red arrow indicated the overexpressed genes. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

Similarly, Sun et al. established a menaquinone-4 (MK-4) P. pastoris cell factory by introducing a heterologous gene encoding Homo sapiens UBIAD1 (HsUBIAD1), which can produce MK-4 from phylloquinone (VK1) or menadione (VK3). HsUBIAD1 was cloned into pGAPZA (with the constitutive promoter pGAP) and pPICZA (with the inducible promoter pAOX1) and the effect of promoters on the expression of the target gene was investigated. It was found that the vector pGAPZA (with the target gene HsUBIAD1 under the control of pGAP) resulted in higher protein expression level. Then the geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate synthase gene (GGPPS) from Sulfolobus acidocaldarius was fused with the endogenous isopentenyl diphosphate isomerase gene (IDI1), and the resultant IDI1-GGPPS chimeric gene was integrated into the 28S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) loci in a multi-copy manner using a modified integrative vector (pGrG, based on pGAPZA. In combination with the optimization of the fermentation conditions (i.e. pH and temperature) resulted in the maximum yield of MK-4 up to 0.24 mg/g DCW [82].

Polyketides

Polyketides are a class of secondary metabolites produced by bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals and the most important source of natural product-based drugs. 6-Methylsalicylic acid (6-MSA) is the first polyketide produced by P. pastoris. The 6-MSA biosynthetic pathway consisting of the phosphopantetheinyl transferase (PPtase) gene from A. nidulans and the 6-MSA synthase (6-MSAS) gene from A. terrus was successfully reconstituted in P. pastoris. After methanol induction, the production of 6-MSA was up to 2.2 g/L in 20 h in a 5 L bioreactor, which established P. pastoris as a promising cell factory for future industrial production of fungal polyketides [83].

Recently, P. pastoris was engineered for de novo biosynthesis of citrinin, a value-added compound. The structure and biosynthetic pathway of citrinin are more complicated than 6-MSA, serving as an excellent model compound for further investigations [84,85]. Besides the citrinin polyketide synthase gene PksCT (CitS) from Monascus purpureus and the phosphopantetheinyl transferase gene NpgA from A. nidulans, the citrinin gene cluster from M. purpureus, including a serine hydrolase gene MPL1 (CitA), an oxygenase gene MPL2 (CitB), a dehydrogenase gene MPL4 (CitD), and other two intron-removed genes MPL6 (CitE) and MPL7 (CitC), was introduced to enable citrinin biosynthesis in P. pastoris. After 24 h induction with methanol, the yield of citrinin reached up to 0.6 ± 0.1 mg/L [86].

Production of monacolin J and lovastatin is another classic example of the production of polyketides using P. pastoris (Fig. 4). Seven enzymes, including lovastatin nonaketide synthase (LovB), enoyl reductase (LovC), thioesterase (LovG), a cytochrome P450 enzyme (LovA) together with a cytochrome P450 reductase (CPR), and cyltransferase (LovD) from A. terreus, as well as phosphopantetheinyl transferase (PPtase or NpgA) from A. nidulans, were heterologously expressed in P. pastoris. The expression of all these genes were driven by pAOX1. LovB, LovC, LovG, and NpgA expression cassettes were cloned into the vector pPICZ B. LovA and CPR were cloned into the vector pPIC3.5K. After these two vectors were linearized and integrated into the GS115 genome, the recombinant strains were screened using zeocin-containing plates and histidine-deficient plates, respectively. Under pH-controlled culture conditions with methanol as the carbon source, 60.0 mg/L of monacolin J and 14.4 mg/L of lovastatin were obtained. In order to overcome the limitations of intermediate accumulation and metabolic burden, approaches using pathway splitting at the branch point of dihydromonacolin L and co-cultivation of yeast species were developed. Under the optimal conditions, 593.9 mg/L monacolin J and 250.8 mg/L lovastatin were obtained [18]. Compared with the yield of lovastatin in S. cerevisiae (20 mg/L), P. pastoris obviously demonstrated higher potential for further development and practical applications [87].

Fig. 4

Biosynthetic pathway for lovastatin and simvastatin. Heterologous genes integrated into the genome of P. pastoris were shown in red. lovB and lovF: two PKS genes; lovC: an enoyl-reductase gene; lovG: a thioesterase gene; lovA: a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase gene; and lovD: an acyl-transferase gene. NpgA is from A. nidulans. lovB, lovC, lovF, lovG, and CPR were amplified from the A. terreus genome. slovA and slovD are synthetic and codon-optimized DNA sequences for lovA and lovD, respectively. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

Flavonoids

Flavonoids are widely existed in plants and used as essential components of many drugs, such as those to prevent cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and treat chronic hepatitis [88]. Chang et al. used a recombinant P. pastoris, which expressed a fusion protein of CYP57B3 from A. oryzae and CPR from S. cerevisiae, to catalyze the ortho-hydroxylation of 10 flavonoids. The results showed that 5 flavonoids, including genistein, daidzein, liquiritigenin, naringenin, and apigenin could be transformed into the corresponding hydroxyl derivatives (Fig. 5). In addition, after feeding with genistein, the yeast extracts showed high inhibitory activity on melanogenesis [89]. Then, 3′-hydroxygenistein was identified as the active product of genistein biotransformation in recombinant P. pastoris, which demonstrated liver protection and anti-inflammatory effects. The conversion yield of 3′-hydroxygenisterin was 14% with a production level of 3.5 mg/L in a 5 L fermenter [90]. Furthermore, the periodic hydrogen peroxide shock strategy was employed to further increase the production of 3′-hydroxygenistein to 20.3 mg/L in a 5 L fermenter [91].

Fig. 5

The ortho-hydroxylation of five flavonoids. CYP57B3-CPR is a fusion protein consisting of CYP57B3 from A. oryzae and the cytochrome P450 reductase (CPR) from S. cerevisiae.

Conclusions and perspectives

Many synthetic biology tools have been developed to precisely control the expression of heterologous genes and the assembly and integration of multi-gene pathways in P. pastoris [75]. However, the development of P. pastoris cell factories for natural products is still limited to a few examples [82], particularly when compared with that of S. cerevisiae, indicating a need to develop novel synthetic biology tools. For example, the most commonly used promoters in P. pastoris are still pAOX1 and pGAP [51], while the construction of efficient cell factories generally requires to precisely control the expression levels of biosynthetic pathway genes. In this case, promoters with different strength (weak, medium, and strong promoters) should be characterized under various fermentation conditions (i.e. carbon sources). In addition, most of exogenous genes are currently integrated into the HIS4 or AOX1 locus of the P. pastoris genome, while natural product biosynthetic pathways generally contain multiple genes [72]. In other words, well characterized integration sites are highly demanded to assemble natural product biosynthetic pathways. Ideally, the integration sites should enable efficient and stable expression of heterologous genes, without affecting cell fitness. Although CRISPR/Cas9 system has been established for genome editing in P. pastoris, multiplex integration of long biosynthetic pathways still suffers from low efficiency and the reports on the use of CRISPR technology to construct P. pastoris cell factories are still rather limited. Currently, simultaneous integration of multiple genes was reported in a ku70-deficient P. pastoris strain. Unfortunately, the disruption of KU70 was generally reported to result in impaired fitness and low transformation efficiency [72,92]. The challenge in improving homologous recombination efficiency without KU70 disruption should be addressed for multiplex integration of natural product biosynthetic pathways in near future.

Due to the complexity of cellular metabolic network, systems level understanding is generally a prerequisite to establish efficient P. pastoris cell factories. Based on the genome sequencing results of P. pastoris DSMZ 70382 [93] and GS115 [94], genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs), PpaMBEL1254 [95], iPP668 [96], and iLC915 [97] have been established. Tomas-Gamisans et al. reconstructed and verified a new consensus model iMT1026 based on these three early reports of GEMs. New discoveries related to glycosylation, fatty acid metabolism, and cell energy were complemented to the new model. Growth rate, carbon dioxide production, arabitol production, and other parameters predicted by the model iMT1026 were consistent with the experimental results, confirming that the prediction and simulation capabilities have been improved [98]. The P. pastoris GEMs have been successfully implemented to identify targets to increase the production of recombinant proteins. Nocon et al. predicted 9 engineering targets based on GEMs, 5 of which significantly increased the production of cytosolic human superoxide dismutase (hSOD) [99]. Cankorur-Cetinkaya et al. used GEMs to analyze the metabolic burdens caused by heterologous protein synthesis and found that supplementation of tyrosine to the culture medium could increase the yield of human lysozyme and antibody fragment Fab-3H6 [100]. Currently, the production of natural products is still mainly limited by the low efficiency of the biosynthetic pathways, and there is a lack of examples on the application of GEMs in improving the production of natural products in P. pastoris. Nevertheless, once the bottleneck of the pathway enzymes has been addressed and the titer reaches to a certain level, the supply of the precursors and cofactors will become rate-limiting and GEMs can play a more important role in guiding the design of efficient yeast cell factories.

As a non-model yeast strain, our understanding of the metabolic and regulatory networks is still rather limited for P. pastoris. For example, Wriessnegger et al. found that the overexpression of RAD52, encoding a protein responsible for DNA repair and recombination, significantly improved the production of trans-nootkatol [79]. Therefore, it is highly desirable to develop genome-scale metabolic engineering strategies that can perturb all the genes at once, with an aim to identify non-intuitive engineering targets to improve the production of the desirable compounds and map genotype-phenotype relationships in a high-throughput manner [101]. Currently, CRISPR based genome-scale engineering has been well established in E. coli [102], S. cerevisiae [[103], [104], [105]], and mammalian cells [106]. Nevertheless, several challenges should be addressed to establish genome-scale engineering for P. pastoris, such as an efficient CRISPR system, high transformation efficiency, as well as high throughput screening.

In summary, great progress has been made in genetic manipulation (i.e. heterologous gene expression system and genome editing system) of P. pastoris for the production of recombinant proteins and value-added compounds. Nevertheless, more efforts should be devoted to developing novel synthetic biology tools (i.e. multi-gene pathway assembly and multiplex genome engineering) to establish P. pastoris as a robust chassis for the biosynthesis of natural products.

CRediT author statement

Juncan Gao and Lihong Jiang drafted the manuscript. Jiazhang Lian conceived the review idea and revised the manuscript. All authors approved the manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

None.