Production of isoprenol using the IPP-bypass pathway in Rhodosporidium toruloides

ABSTRACT: There is increasing demand for domestically generated-bioderived aviation fuels to strengthen the national energy supply while also reducing carbon emissions. Developing these supply chains provides an opportunity to explore novel aviation fuel components, such as 1,4-dimethylcyclooctane (DMCO). In this work we explore the use of a promising bioproduction yeast, Rhodospridium toruloides, to generate isoprenol, a chemical intermediate of DMCO. We first introduced the isoprenol production pathways most successful in E. coli and S. cerevisiae and determined the IPP-bypass pathway was a promising route for isoprenol production in R. toruloides. We next demonstrated that increasing flux through the mevalonate pathway increased isoprenol production. Through proteomics we identified a potential bottleneck in the expression of the final phosphatase in the IPP-bypass pathway. We therefore explored alternatives to increase expression by screening a selection of phosphatases for isoprenol production in R. toruloides. Finally, the top three strains from all screens were evaluated for production in sorghum hydrolysates generated using choloinium lysonate. Through this work the top producing strain generated up to 93.1 mg/L in mock medium and 85.5 mg/L in sorghum hydrolysates.

INSTRUMENT(S):

ORGANISM(S): Rhodotorula Toruloides

SUBMITTER: Christopher Petzold  

LAB HEAD: Christopher Petzold

PROVIDER: PXD064428 | Pride | 2026-04-09

REPOSITORIES: Pride