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Background    Saccharomyces cerevisiae  (baker’s yeast) has great potential as a whole-cell biocatalyst for multistep synthesis of various organic molecules. To date, however, few examples exist in the literature of the successful biosynthetic production of chemical compounds, in yeast, that do not exist in nature. Considering that more than 30% of all drugs on the market are purely chemical compounds, often produced by harsh synthetic chemistry or with very low yields, novel and environmentally sound production routes are highly desirable. Here, we explore the biosynthetic production of enantiomeric precursors of the anti-tuberculosis and anti-epilepsy drugs ethambutol, brivaracetam, and levetiracetam. To this end, we have generated heterologous biosynthetic pathways leading to the production of ( S )-2-aminobutyric acid (ABA) and ( S )-2-aminobutanol in baker’s yeast.    Results  We first designed a two-step heterologous pathway, starting with the endogenous amino acid  l -threonine and leading to the production of enantiopure ( S )-2-aminobutyric acid. The combination of  Bacillus subtilis  threonine deaminase and a mutated  Escherichia coli  glutamate dehydrogenase resulted in the intracellular accumulation of 0.40 mg/L of ( S )-2-aminobutyric acid. The combination of a threonine deaminase from  Solanum lycopersicum  (tomato) with two copies of mutated glutamate dehydrogenase from  E. coli  resulted in the accumulation of comparable amounts of ( S )-2-aminobutyric acid. Additional  l -threonine feeding elevated ( S )-2-aminobutyric acid production to more than 1.70 mg/L. Removing feedback inhibition of aspartate kinase HOM3, an enzyme involved in threonine biosynthesis in yeast, elevated ( S )-2-aminobutyric acid biosynthesis to above 0.49 mg/L in cultures not receiving additional  l -threonine. We ultimately extended the pathway from ( S )-2-aminobutyric acid to ( S )-2-aminobutanol by introducing two reductases and a phosphopantetheinyl transferase. The engineered strains produced up to 1.10 mg/L ( S )-2-aminobutanol.    Conclusions  Our results demonstrate the biosynthesis of ( S )-2-aminobutyric acid and ( S )-2-aminobutanol in yeast. To our knowledge this is the first time that the purely synthetic compound ( S )-2-aminobutanol has been produced in vivo. This work paves the way to greener and more sustainable production of chemical entities hitherto inaccessible to synthetic biology.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12934-017-0667-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Production of (S)-2-aminobutyric acid and (S)-2-aminobutanol in Saccharomyces cerevisiae